Democracy and integrity: making sense of the Constitution

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Periodical article

Title:	Democracy and integrity: making sense of the Constitution
Author:	Davis, Dennis
Year:	1998
Periodical:	South African Journal on Human Rights
Volume:	14
Issue:	1
Pages:	127-145
Language:	English
Geographic term:	South Africa
Subjects:	political systems constitutions 1996
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1080/02587203.1998.11834973
Abstract:	South Africa's new constitutional dispensation introduced a promise of a culture of justification. Legislative and executive performance must be justified in terms of the Constitution and failure by the State to fulfil its constitutional commitments, best summarized in terms of s 7(2) of the 1996 Constitution, must be similarly explained. However, the meaning of the text is not simply, neatly and uncontroversially revealed to its readers. Justification requires standards in terms of which the disputed conduct can and must be judged. Accordingly, the formulation of such standards becomes the key to the constitutional project. The author argues that there is no single meaning within the text and that the limits to meaning are not only imposed by the language chosen to be contained in the text but also in terms of legal and linguistic conventions, themselves informed by politics. Notes, ref.