Browsing by Author "Beth, Goldblatt"
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Item Giving money to children: the state's constitutional obligations to provide child support grants to child headed households(South African Journal on Human Rights, 2004) Sandra, Liebenberg; Beth, GoldblattOne of the most tangible effects of the HIV epidemic is the growing number of orphans and the emergence in ever increasing amounts of households headed by children. These new family configurations pose a wide range of challenges to our society. Not least of these is the challenge to change laws that hamper these households from accessing desperately needed benefits. The state currently provides a child support grant (CSG) for children in need. This grant (R170 per month from 1 April 2004) is provided to the ‘primary care giver’ (PCG) of a child who is currently under the age of 11 years. Neither the SocialAssist ance Act, nor the regulations promulgated under it set any age limit for the PCG. Effectively, however, such a person must be 16 years old as this is the age when an identity document is first provided, and a PCG has to provide his or her identity document in applying for the grant. In practice, the various offices of the Department of Social Development, responsible for administering the CSG, are treating applicants differently and some are even turning away those who are under the age of 21. This note argues that the exclusion of children living in child-headed households from the child support grant programme constitutes a violation of the Constitution.Item The interrelationship between equality and socio-economic rights under South Africa's transformative constitution(South African Journal on Human Rights, 2007) Sandra, Liebenberg; Beth, GoldblattThis article develops the interrelationship between the equality and socio-economic rights in the Bill of Rights to enhance the responsiveness of our jurisprudence to the mutually reinforcing patterns of poverty and inequality in South Africa. We proceed from the principle that rights are interdependent and interconnected, and examine the implications of this for our evolving socio-economic rights and equality jurisprudence. We argue that such a reading accords with the mandate of the courts to promote the foundational constitutional values of human dignity, equality and freedom in their interpretation of the Bill of Rights, and advances the transformative goals of the Constitution. The article examines how equality jurisprudence should be developed so as to be more responsive to material disadvantage and the values protected by socio-economic rights. Thereafter, it examines how an equality perspective can enrich South Africa’s evolving jurisprudence on socio-economic rights. We demonstrate how the value of equality can be integrated within the model of reasonableness review developed by the Constitutional Court for evaluating positive socio-economic rights claims. Finally, some of the strategic implications of this interdependent reading of equality and socio-economic rights for developing a jurisprudence that facilitates the attainment of social and economic transformation in South Africa are considered.