Judicial approaches to the interpretation of the Bill of Rights and foundational values in the South African Constitution. 
 

Author:

A Booley
 

Summary: 

South Africa’s Constitution is often celebrated for its transformative promise, yet that promise depends critically on how courts interpret its text. This article offers a reflective and accessible examination of the interpretive approaches employed by the judiciary since the advent of the democratic Constitution, with particular emphasis on the Bill of Rights and its foundational values. The articled addresses how textual, purposive, contextual, and value-based methods of constitutional interpretation shape the meaning and practical effect of constitutional rights in a society marked by deep historical inequality. To this end, it traces the shift from the pre-democratic era, where interpretive approaches were narrow, formalistic, and frequently exclusionary, to the post-1994 jurisprudence that increasingly embraces purposive and value-driven reasoning. Through engagement with landmark Constitutional Court judgments such as King v De Jager (2021), the article demonstrates how contemporary courts are moving toward interpretive methods that foreground human dignity, equality, and substantive justice. In doing so, it highlights the evolving and dynamic nature of constitutional interpretation in South Africa. The paper concludes that constitutional interpretation is not a neutral exercise but a normative one, embedded in social, political, and historical contexts. It recommends a sustained commitment to purposive and context-sensitive approaches to ensure that the Bill of Rights fulfils its role as a living instrument capable of advancing human rights, democratic values, and social justice in an evolving constitutional democracy.


Link to book chater