Tjaart Jurgens Maré Doctor Legum Universiteit van die Vrystaat

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Dit is duidelik dat die aandster in die hemelruim op ʼn donker nag nie duidelik raakgesien
word nie. Dit is dan ook geen wonder dat die kritiek van Visser kommentaar sou uitlok
nie. 343
In die artikel “The ‘Constitutional Attack on Private Law’ Are the Fears Well Founded?”
antwoord Gretchen Carpenter en Christo Botha soos volg op Visser se kritiek :
en
“Professor O H Visser is very concerned about what he perceives as an assault on the
domain of private law by the court in Gardener v Whitaker .... ‘ Unfortunately his
criticism of the judgement is composed mainly of broadsides and inside remarks
rather than well-founded legal argument. His reference to a ‘total onslaught’ and to a
‘constitutional’ attack on private law’ is emotional and politically loaded language that
is reminiscent of the ‘old order’. It may be appropriate to confrontational rhetoric, but
certainly not to an academic discussion.” 344
“Visser avers that judges interpreting the new Constitution are free to use what he
terms ‘endless methods of interpreting it in order to achieve the desired results’. It
sounds rather as if he accusing the judiciary of throwing integrity overboard and
reducing that process of adjudication to a search for pretexts for subjective decisions
which cannot stand proper scrutiny. If this is so, it is a very serious charge. He
returns to this tack later, stating rather sarcastically that judges and academics writing
on constitutional interpretation seem to feel that anything goes as long as the result is
politically correct. This is an unwarranted attack on the integrity and good faith of both
judges and commentators, unsupported as it is by any evidence whatsoever.”
Dit gaan hier nie oor ʼn te kort aan die bekwaamhede van die regbank nie, maar veel
eerder oor ʼn wanbegrip van die regsvormingsproses. Dit is duidelik dat regter Froneman
weet waaroor dit gaan. Hyself het immers in Matiso v The Commanding Officer, Port
Elizabeth Prison met die kwessie te doen gehad. 345
Vergelyk ook regter Kentridge se siening oor die interpretasie van die Grondwet in S v
Zuma 346
343 Bepaal Artikel 16 van die Handves van Menseregte dan nie dat elkeen die reg op vryheid van uitdrukking het nie , waarby ingesluit is
(a) die vryheid om inligting of idees te ontvang of oor te dra; en
(b) akademiese vryheid van wetenskaplike navorsing.
344 Carpenter en Botha, :1996:128
345 1994(4) SA 592 (SE) op 597 I - 598 D. Regter Froneman stel dit soos volg: “The values and principles contained in the Constitution are, and
could only be, formulated and expressed in wide and general terms, because they are to be of general application. In terms of the Constitution the
Courts bear the responsibility of giving specific content to those values and principles in any given situation. In doing so Judges will invariably
‘create law’. For those steeped in the tradition of parliamentary sovereignty the notion of Judges creating law and not merely interpreting and
applying the law is an uncomfortable one. Whether that traditional view was ever correct is debatable, but the danger exists that it will inhibit
Judges from doing what they are called upon to do in terms of the Constitution. This does not mean that Judges should now suddenly enter into an
orgy of judicial lawmaking, but that they should recognise that their function of judicial review, based on the supremacy of the constitution, should
not be hidden under the guise of simply seeking and giving expression to the will of the majority in Parliament”
346 1995(2) SA 642 (CC) op 652I-653B. “While we must always be conscious of the value underlying the Constitution, it is nonetheless our task to interpret
a written instrument. I am well aware of the fallacy of supposing that general language must have a single objective meaning. Nor is it easy to avoid the
influence of one’s personal intellectual and moral perceptives. But it cannot be too strongly stressed that the Constitution does not mean whatever we might