Adonisi v Minister for Transport and Public Works: Western Cape: An ‘aesthetic’ reading

Abstract

Abstract This article proposes an aesthetic reading of the recent decision of the Western Cape High Court in the case of Adonisi v Minister for Transport and Public Works: Western Cape. The aesthetic reading pursued here is advanced through the work of Jacques Rancière on the aesthetics of politics. The article sets out to establish an understanding of Rancière’s key concept of the ‘distribution of the sensible’. It then proposes a theoretical alignment of the concept with Carl Schmitt’s concept of nomos. The purpose of such an alignment is to draw out the aesthetic relationship between space and law in the South African context – a relationship which is not only co-constitutive but also foundational. The article then proposes that an instance of Rancière’s version of politics occurs in the Adonisi case, by virtue primarily of the fact that Ms Adonisi asserted a presupposed equality in the dispute – an equality which was not available to her in the post-apartheid distribution of the sensible and an equality in which the court participated politically. The article concludes with a Rancièrian reconsideration of the subject of human rights in the context of recent expressions by Tshepo Madlingozi.