[301]Now that constitutionalism has become central to the new emerging South African jurisprudence, legislative interpretation will be radically different from what it used to be in the past legal order. In that legal order, due to the sovereignty of parliament, the supremacy of legislation and the absence of judicial review of parliamentary statutes, courts engaged in simple statutory interpretation, giving effect to the clear and unambiguous language of the legislative text—no matter how unjust the legislative provision. The view of the court in Bongopi v Council of the State, Ciskei 1992(3) SA 250 (CK) at 265 H–I, as per Pickard CJ is instructive in this regard:
This court has always stated openly that it is not the maker of laws. It will enforce the law as it finds it. To attempt to promote policies that are not to be found in the law itself or to prescribe what it believes to be the current public attitudes or standards in regard to these policies is not its function.
[302]With the entrenchment of a Bill of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms in a supreme constitution, however, the interpretive task frequently involves making constitutional choices by balancing competing fundamental rights and freedoms. This can often only be done by reference to a system of values extraneous to the constitutional text itself, where these principles constitute the historical context in which the text was adopted and which help to explain the meaning of the text. The constitution makes it particularly imperative for courts to develop the entrenched fundamental rights in terms of a cohesive set of values, ideal to an open and democratic society. To this end common values of human rights protection the world over and foreign precedent may be instructive.
[303]While it is important to appreciate that in the matter before us the court had been called upon to decide an issue of constitutionality and not to engage in debate on the desirability of abolition or retention, it is equally important to appreciate that the nature of the court s role in constitutional interpretation, and the duty placed on courts by Section 35, will of necessity draw them into the realm of making necessary value choices.
[304]The application of the limitation clause embodied in Section 33(1) to any law of general application which competes with a Chapter 3 right is essentially also an exercise in balancing opposing rights. To achieve the required balance will of necessity involve value judgements. This is the nature of constitutional interpretation. Indeed Section 11(2) which is the counterpart of Section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe[1], and provides protection against cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, embodies broad idealistic notions of dignity and humanity. If applied to determine whether the death penalty was a form of torture, treatment or punishment which is cruel, inhuman or degrading it also involves making value choices, as was held per Gubbay CJ in Catholic Commision for Justice and Peace, Zimbabwe v Attorney-General, Zimbabwe, 1993(4) SA 239(ZS) at 241. In order to guard against what Didcott J, in his concurring judgement terms the trap of undue subjectivity, the interpretation clause prescribes that courts seek guidance in international norms and foreign judicial precedent, reflective of the values which underlie an open and democratic society based on freedom and equality. By articulating rather than suppressing values which underlie our decisions, we are not being subjective. On the
- ↑ Act No 12 of 1979.
