THE Constitutional Court has nine black judges and two white. In a judgment handed down a fortnight ago, the court divided nine to two, black to white. The judges had harsh things to say to one another. And the questions that divided them concerned race, culture, belonging and respect. Never before have the politics of race inside the court itself been on such stark display.The case concerned the replacement of apartheid-era street names. In 2015, AfriForum was granted an order restraining the City of Tshwane from changing the names of streets on the basis that proper public consultations had not yet been held. Tshwane appealed against the restraining order and lost in the Supreme Court of Appeal. It then appealed to the Constitutional Court. This time it won.Much of the case concerned how to deal with appeals against interim orders. There isn’t space to talk about that here and this column concerns itself with only some of the issues that divided the judges.In finding for Tshwane, ...
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