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Judge President Hlophe and the politics of legal transformation
By Isaac Shai
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Law played a decisive role in the dispossession and oppression of African people in South Africa. In post-apartheid South Africa, law was once again poised to play a central role as an instrument for radical transformation.
The South African Constitution is regarded as a lodestar that guides the process of transformation. However, it appears that there are fundamental questions that as a country we either forgot to ask or took for granted.
One critical aspect that is scarce, particularly in public discourse on the nature and trajectory of our constitutional democracy, is the tension between transformation and “the deeply entrenched attitudes towards and thinking about what the ‘The Law is’, how it works and its function in the legal system and society”.
Joanne Hayes and her family are seeking a court order that would see the entire report of the notorious Kerry Babies Tribunal censured.
Last week Ms Hayes - the woman wrongly accused of murdering the infant whose remains were found at White Strand near Cahersiveen on April 14, 1984, sparking the Kerry Babies saga - sought a High Court order declaring the findings of the subsequent tribunal were unfounded and incorrect.
In January 2018 Gardaí issued an unreserved apology to Ms Hayes and her family for the treatment they received at the hands of gardaí during the 1984 investigation.
Then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar subsequently issued a formal apology to Ms Hayes and her family on behalf of the State, which is currently negotiating a compensation deal with the family.