The South African Constitutional Court Judgment Concerning the Suspension of SADC Tribunal: Critiquing the Critics of the Constitutional Court

Abstract

This article discusses the various scholarly critiques of the South African Constitutional Court judgment in Law Society of South Africa & Others v President of the Republic of South Africa & Others. While we discuss and analyse the articles by some of the scholars who have critiqued the decision, we pay more attention to the criticism by Tladi in particular. We point out that Tladi failed to properly locate the main basis of the Constitutional Court’s decision. We also disagree with Tladi’s assertion that the SADC Treaty and the 2000 Tribunal Protocol could be amended through any means other than the three-quarters majority of the SADC Summit as required by the SADC Treaty. Further, we disagree with Tladi’s view that the doctrine of subsequent practice is applicable in this case and that it was correctly applied in the adoption of the 2014 Tribunal Protocol.