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 No-one could miss the significance of the hermeneutic standard set. The values urged upon the court are not those that have informed our past. Our history is one of repression not freedom, oligarchy not democracy, apartheid and prejudice not equality, clandestine not open government. As the epilogue to the constitution states:

'This constitution provides a historic bridge between the past of a deeply divided society characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and a future founded on the recognition of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence and development opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of colour, race, class, belief or sex.'

In interpreting the rights enshrined in chapter 3, therefore, the court is directed to the future: to the ideal of a new society which is to be built on the common values which made a political transition possible in our country and which are the foundation of its new constitution. This is not to say that there is nothing from our past which should be retained. Of course this is not so. As Kentridge AJ described in the first judgment of this court (S v Zuma unreported judgment of this court, 5 April 1995), many of the rights entrenched in section 25 of the constitution concerning criminal justice are longstanding principles of our law, although eroded by statute and judicial decision. In interpreting the rights contained in section 25, those common law principles will be useful guides. But generally section 35(1) instructs us, in interpreting the constitution, to look forward not backward, to recognise the evils and injustices of the past and to avoid their repetition.

Section 9 of the Constitution provides that:

'Every person shall have the right to life.'

This formulation of the right to life is not one which has been used in the constitutions of other countries or in international human rights conventions. In choosing this formulation, the drafters have specifically avoided either expressly preserving the death penalty, or expressly outlawing it. In addition, they have not used the language so common in other constitutions, which provides that no-one may be deprived of life arbitrarily or without due process of law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights contains an unconditional form of the right: article 3 provides that 'Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person.' On the other hand, many other international rights instruments contain qualified protections of the right to life. Article 6(1) of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that 'Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No-one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.' Subsections 2–5 of article 6 then provide for minimum standards for countries which have not abolished the death penalty, and article 6(6) provides that: 'Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any state party to the present covenant.' In addition in 1989 an optional protocol was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, article 1 of which provides that 'No-one within the jurisdiction of state parties to the present optional protocol shall be executed'.

Article 4 of the Banjul Charter on Human and People's Rights (African Charter) provides that 'Human beings are inviolable. Every human being shall be entitled to respect for his life and the integrity of the person. No one may be arbitrarily deprived of this right.'

Article 2(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights provides that 'Everyone's right to life shall be protected by law. No one shall be deprived of his life intentionally save in the execution of a sentence of a court following his conviction of a crime for which this penalty is provided by law.' But in 1983 a protocol to the Convention was adopted which provided that capital punishment should be abolished. The protocol has been widely ratified. See Van Dijk and Van Hoof Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights 2nd ed (1990) pp 502–3. To the extent that the formulation of the right is different from that