JABULANI SIKHAKHANE: State has failed top court judge’s fourfold test of using resources
Successive rulings have also shunned criteria when it was demanded that the state honour the bill of rights
Ben Okri once wrote that it is possible that we know all too well “the awesome power of words, which is why we use them with such deadly and accurate cruelty”. Take four recurring words in the SA constitution — “within its available resources”.
They sound so dull and harmless. Yet, when mobilised by politicians, with the support of the Constitutional Court, they are anything but. These four words have become the state’s escape hatch. Based on Constitutional Court interpretations, these words allow the state to escape the responsibility of living up to the bill of rights, specifically the rights relating to access to housing, health care, food, water and social security...
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