Lawfare

Summary

Are the courts the only arm of government that can fulfil the Constitution’s promise? Is there too much interference by the courts in politics? Is law a weapon in politics? Is politics outside the law? Lawfare is the potent clash of these ideas.

This book is essential reading to bring forward the lessons from our past. A bold and unique collaboration between legal experts Michelle le Roux and Dennis Davis, it explores a series of landmark cases that came to define South Africa’s legal and political landscape. It examines how the law has been used and abused. Defining cases litigated in the apartheid past, in the constitutional era and right up to the recent days of state capture are examined.

This book is a response to populist attacks on the Constitution. It affirms that South Africa’s Constitution holds the promise of the law as one progressive tool to use in dismantling racial inequality, holding government accountable and constructing a free, dignified, equal and just society.