Cathi Albertyn Quotes

It suggests that we should move through and beyond a dignity-based concern with social inclusion and sufficiency towards an idea of systemic and material justice

This jurisprudence was often powerfully inclusive, but less likely to be transformative, would prefer process over substance (especially in socio-economic rights) and was better at addressing inequalities of recognition than redistribution.

It proposes that the value of equality can be developed as an idea of ‘equality of condition’, aligned with an idea of substantive freedom, that would better resonate with the struggles of our past and present, and suggests how the right could be subject to more transformative interpretation and application.

It then suggests that the equality-centred, democratic Constitution represented an important anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal achievement, but that the plasticity of equality meant that it would always be open to different interpretations by the executive and parliament, as well as by courts tasked with enforcing the Constitution.

The article identifies these differences and suggests how we might reinterpret constitutional equality within a transformative approach to better address the deep and systemic inequalities in our society.