The Constitutional Court of South Africa and its encounter with One Party Dominant Democracy: has the appropriate balance been struck?

Mcontsi, Ilan Vuyile

The Constitutional Court of South Africa and its encounter with One Party Dominant Democracy: has the appropriate balance been struck?

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

School For Advanced Legal Studies

Faculty

Faculty of Law

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation into the effects of one-party dominant democracy in the Republic of South Africa (SA) on the three arms of state, with a specific focus on the analysis of four judgments of the Constitutional Court of South Africa (CC) in adjudicating matters which exhibit pathologies of one-party dominant democracy (OPD). The investigation will focus on whether the Constitutional has been able to arrest attempts made by public functionaries in eroding our constitutional democracy, without violating the doctrine of separation of powers. There are several pathologies in a OPD, which include attempts by the dominant party to maintain its dominance over government resources by politicising public resources over which government has a monopoly and deploy them for partisan purposes which negatively impacts the functioning of the state; the capture of independent constitutional institutions by deploying party members who lack independence, thus hampering the effectiveness of the system of checks and balances, which then results in corruption at government level; and failures by Parliament to hold the President and executive accountable for their actions; the blurring of the boundaries between the state and the political party, thus affecting the principle of separation of powers. This thesis will analyse four judgments wherein the CC was required to determine matters that raised issues associated with pathologies of a one party dominant democracy. The central question in this thesis is whether, in those cases, the CC has been able to deliver constitutionally sound judgments in matters that come before the Constitutional Court which exhibit pathologies of a dominant party democracy, while ensuring that it does not unnecessarily infringe into the domain of the other arms of the state. An analysis of these cases reveals that the Constitutional Court, for the most part, has made the correct decisions, based on the textual interpretation and purpose of the Constitution, and only intruding into the domain of the other branches of government in the fulfilment of its constitutional obligations. However, I observed that there is a lack of clarity, unpredictability and sometimes disagreements amongst judges in the application of the doctrine of separation of powers in some of these matters.

Keywords

democracy

constitutional court

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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