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The Republic of South Africa is a unitary parliamentary democratic republic. The President of South Africa serves both as head of state and as head of government. The President is elected by the National Assembly and must retain the confidence of the Assembly in order to remain in office. South Africans also elect provincial legislatures which govern each of the country's nine provinces.
The president of South Africa is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of South Africa. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the South African National Defence Force. Between 1961 and 1994, the office of head of state was the state presidency.
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Government. The current constitution, the country's fifth, was drawn up by the Parliament elected in 1994 in the South African general election, 1994. It was promulgated by President Nelson Mandela on 18 December 1996 and came into effect on 4 February 1997, replacing the Interim Constitution of 1993. The first constitution was enacted by the South Africa Act 1909, the longest-lasting to date. Since 1961, the constitutions have promulgated a republican form of government.
Arthur Chaskalson SCOB, was President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2001 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005. Chaskalson was a member of the defence team in the Rivonia Trial of 1963.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in South Africa since the Civil Union Act, 2006 came into force on 30 November 2006. The decision of the Constitutional Court in the case of Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie on 1 December 2005 extended the common-law definition of marriage to include same-sex spouses—as the Constitution of South Africa guarantees equal protection before the law to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation—and gave Parliament one year to rectify the inequality in the marriage statutes. On 14 November 2006, the National Assembly passed a law allowing same-sex couples to legally solemnise their union 229 to 41, which was subsequently approved by the National Council of Provinces on 28 November in a 36 to 11 vote, and the law came into effect two days later.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is a supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), formerly known as the Appellate Division, is the second-highest court of appeal in South Africa below the Constitutional Court. The country's apex court from 1910 to 1994, it no longer holds that position, having been displaced in constitutional matters by the Constitutional Court in 1994, and in all matters by 2013. It is located in Bloemfontein. Bloemfontein is often, and has been traditionally referred to, as the "judicial capital" of South Africa because of the court, although the Constitutional Court is based in Johannesburg.
The Chief Justice of South Africa is the most senior judge of the Constitutional Court and head of the judiciary of South Africa, who exercises final authority over the functioning and management of all the courts.
Edwin Cameron is a retired judge who served as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He is well known for his HIV/AIDS and gay-rights activism and was hailed by Nelson Mandela as "one of South Africa's new heroes". President Ramaphosa appointed him as Inspecting Judge of Correctional Services from 1 January 2020 and in October 2019 he was elected Chancellor of Stellenbosch University.
South Africa has a 'hybrid' or 'mixed' legal system, formed by the interweaving of a number of distinct legal traditions: a civil law system inherited from the Dutch, a common law system inherited from the British, and a customary law system inherited from indigenous Africans. These traditions have had a complex interrelationship, with the English influence most apparent in procedural aspects of the legal system and methods of adjudication, and the Roman-Dutch influence most visible in its substantive private law. As a general rule, South Africa follows English law in both criminal and civil procedure, company law, constitutional law and the law of evidence; while Roman-Dutch common law is followed in the South African contract law, law of delict (tort), law of persons, law of things, family law, etc. With the commencement in 1994 of the interim Constitution, and in 1997 its replacement, the final Constitution, another strand has been added to this weave.
Johann Christiaan Kriegler is a retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
The courts of South Africa are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in South Africa. They apply the law of South Africa and are established under the Constitution of South Africa or under Acts of the Parliament of South Africa.
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
Joe Slovo is an informal settlement in Langa, Cape Town. Like many other informal settlements, it was named after former housing minister and anti-Apartheid activist, Joe Slovo. With over 20,000 residents, Joe Slovo is one of the largest informal settlements in South Africa.
Pius Nkonzo Langa SCOB was Chief Justice of South Africa, serving on the Constitutional Court. He was appointed to the bench in 1994 by Nelson Mandela, he became Deputy Chief Justice in 2001 and was elevated as Chief Justice in 2005 by Thabo Mbeki. He retired in October 2009. He served as the Chancellor of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University from 2006 to 2010. He died in 2013 at the age 74 and following a long illness.
Dikgang Ernest Moseneke OLG is a South African jurist and former Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa.
Johan Coenraad Froneman is a South African retired judge who was a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from October 2009 to May 2020. He joined the judiciary as a judge of the Eastern Cape Division in 1994 and was elevated to the apex court by President Jacob Zuma. He was also the inaugural Deputy Judge President of the Labour Court of South Africa between 1996 and 1999.
Leona Valerie Theron is a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Before her elevation in July 2017, she served in the Supreme Court of Appeal between December 2010 and June 2017. She is the first Coloured judge to serve in the Constitutional Court.
Mandisa Muriel Lindelwa Maya is the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa. She was formerly the President of the Supreme Court of Appeal from 2017 to 2022. She joined the bench in May 2000 as a judge of the Transkei Division of the High Court of South Africa and was elevated to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2006.
References
- South Africa: Constitutional Court of South Africa cases. SAFLII. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
