Constitutional Interpretation of Statutes in the Republic of South Africa

The interpretation of statutes or to be more precise, the judicial understanding of the legal rules, deals with those rules and principles which are employed to construct the correct meaning of the legislative text to be applied in legal disputes. In laymen terms, interpretation is about making sense of the total relevant legislative scheme applicable to the situation at hand. Thus, this report will focus on the how the law should be interpreted under our new constitutional dispensation post-Apartheid.

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

SUMMARY ................................................................................................................. 5

KEY WORDS .............................................................................................................. 5

ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................... 6

TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................. 7

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 8

1.1  Background Information .................................................................................... 8

1.2  Problem statement ............................................................................................ 8

1.3  Hypothesis ........................................................................................................ 9

1.4  Methodology ................................................................................................... 10

1.5  Review of Related Literature........................................................................... 10

BODY ....................................................................................................................... 10

2.1  The Constitution .............................................................................................. 10

2.1.1  The Supremacy and the Rule of Law ....................................................... 10

2.1.2  The Bill of Rights ...................................................................................... 11

2.1.3  Interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights .................................. 12

2.1.4  Limitation Clause ...................................................................................... 13

2.1.5  Application of the Bill of Rights ................................................................. 14

2.1.6  The Right to Equality ................................................................................ 14

2.1.7  The Right to Just Administration .............................................................. 16

3.1  Judicial Precedent .......................................................................................... 16

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 19

Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 20