20 Years of Democracy: The State of Human Rights in South Africa

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Author: Geoff Budlender
• Citation: (2014) 25 Stell LR 439
• Pages: 439-450
• Date: 16 August 2019
• Published date: 16 August 2019

439

20 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY: THE STATE OF

HUMAN RIGHTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Geoff Budlender SC*

1 Introduction

It is a great honour to be invited to g ive this lecture. I follow a long line of

very disting uished speakers, people of great w isdom and learni ng. I am very

pleased to be able to acknowledge the presence of Mr s Beryl Botman. I did

not know Professor Botman person ally, but of course I knew of him by his

reputation. The outpou ring of tributes after his u ntimely death spoke volumes

for the respect and affection i n which he was held.

For me, giving a public speech at Stellenbosch brings ba ck rich and varied

memories. While I have been to t he University many times, I th ink the last

time I spoke at a public event was just over 40 years ago. I had been Pr esident

of the SRC at UCT, and had held ofce in the National Union of South African

Students (“NUSAS”). I part icularly remember the Stellenbosch SRC of 1972,

with which we had a stimulating and collegial relationship. Not ever yone

approved of that. One of those who disapproved was the Pr ime Minister, BJ

Vorster, who was also Chancellor of this University. One of the Stellenbosch

students who had been i nvolved has described what followed:

“From the Afrikaner establishment our group … was attacked in public and labelled by Vorster, in a

public speech as ‘slaprug-Afrikaners’. He ordered our students’ representative council to his ofce

and scolded us like children. He asked whether we were unaware that we were being misled by the

English and the liberals to crack the Afrikaner wall.”1

It is now 20 years since ou r rst democratic Constitution ca me into force,2

and we achieved a Bill of Rights. It is a good time to ta ke stock of where we

are, and where we are going.

There are many reason s for us to be concerned about the st ate of our

nation. But those concern s arise in a country in which we all have the rig ht to

vote, which we are able to exercise freely; in which we are all able to spea k,

which we do vigorously and noisily; in which we have the right to life, the

right to freedom and se curity of person, a nd the rights to privacy, freedom

of association, freedom of movement and residence, and m any others. For

lawyers, there is par ticular interest i n the right to admi nistrative justice, the

right of access to infor mation, the right of access to cou rts, and the right t o a

fair crimi nal trial. They underpin a democ ratic legal system.

* This lecture was delive red on the oc casion of the St ellenbosch Fac ulty of Law an d HF Oppenheime r

Chair’s n inth An nual Hu man Righ ts lectu re held on 2 October 2014 The Faculty ack nowledges w ith

gratitud e the sponsorship of Webbe r Wentzel for this annua l event

1 J Louw-Potgieter Af rikaner Diss idents: A Social Psych ological Study of Id entity and Dis sent (1988) 45

2 The Constit ution of the Republic of S outh Africa Act 20 0 of 1993 (“interim Co nstitution”) was followed

by the adoption of t he Constitution of t he Republic of South Afr ica, 1996 (“the Const itution”)

(2014) 25 Stell LR 439

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