Are South African political actors too quick to ask the country’s judges to referee their disputes? Ordinarily, in a stable and orderly democracy, it is highly desirable that people, and the parties and factions that they constitute, should ‘go the legal route’ rather than settle their differences by force, or bribery, or by any of the myriad other underhand methods that are typically associated with the world of politics.

In this sense, the tendency to ‘rush off to court’, in Justice Moseneke’s words, is praiseworthy. It ought to mean that important disputes are being properly elevated, as a final resort, to the objective, non-partisan and principled forums of the law.

However, it can get out of hand, especially if political players lose the ability to negotiate and compromise with each other; if different views always lead to the emergence of factions, and those factions inevitably see each other as mutually threatening; and if individual ambition for public office is the paramount consideration. When this happens, we run the risk that, far from elevating our legitimate disputes to a higher level, we end up dragging the institutions of justice down into the murkier reaches of political pettiness and rivalry.

Report by CPLO