Constitutional Deference, Courts and Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa, livre ebook

The inclusion of justiciable socio-economic rights in the 1996 South African Constitution raises a number of concerns for the South African Judiciary. At the heart of these difficulties is the tension between giving full effect to these rights, and the appropriate role of the courts in a constitutional democracy in the determination of social and economic policy. In this book, Dr Kirsty McLean grapples with this question, developing a concept of constitutional deference to interrogate the approach of the South African courts and provide a framework in which a normative framework can be developed and criticised.“As we set out on the journey to develop a progressive jurisprudence of social and economic rights, it seems to me that we should accept that it is unlikely that we will achieve consensus on the proper role for courts in this field. Like other areas of constitutional adjudication, our understanding of the proper role of courts will depend on deep and contested questions of political and moral philosophy. The contestation that will inevitably persist, therefore, makes it all the more important that contributions to the debate are clear and principled. This book is both.”- Kate O’Regan, Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South AfricaAbout the editor:Kirsty McLean was called to the Bar in Johannesburg in December 2008. Her areas of practice include general commercial law; public law; constitutional law; administrative law; pension fund law; labour law; unlawful competition and competition law.