what did the drafters of the Constitution have in mind when they established chapter 9 institutions such as the South African Human Rights Commission to protect and support South Africa's constitutional democracy inaugural former chairperson of the commission Dr Barney Pan elaborates the preamble to the Human Rights Commission act says that the commission shall be competent and obliged those are quotation marks from the preamble to investigate any alleged violation of fundamental rights and to assist any person viously affected thereby to secure redress as South Africa tried to find its feat as a constitutional democracy redress became an important part of that Journey the commission would play an integral role as marginalized groups of society turned to this body as its Last Hope For Justice in the growing democracy fast forward 30 years into democracy the commission faces a hurdle which runs the risk of stifling its purpose and immediately enforcing recommendations to tackle violation of Human Rights this as the Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed in an August judgment that its recommendations are not binding and that they are only enforcable by a court of law this follows a dispute between the commission and an agricultural company over the forers recommendations in a matter dealing with the right to access to water senior attorney at the Center for Applied legal studies Tut gilim K says that this is a case of interpretation section 184 of the Constitution one of the the functions of the Human Rights Commission it says that um they are have a mandate to also take steps to um appropriate steps to secure um appropriate redress where human rights have been violated so that is Broad enough we are arguing as CS it's broad enough to include um uh the issuing of binding recommendations this latest judgment leaves the burden on the Comm commission to vindicate its recommendations in a court an impractical task according to commissioner Dro malingi so the drafters of the Constitution were very clear that they were creating bodies that have teeth that have you know Powers you know we receive more than 6,000 complaints a year now what this C decision is saying is that on each and every of those complaints if we find that there's been a violation in order for it to be you know uh respected we must go to court meanwhile South Africans today are not yet lost upon hearing the name the South African Human Rights Commission do you know what the South African Human Rights Commission is and what they do for South Africa uh I think I do have the knowledge they basically look after and make sure that everybody adheres and follows the the human rights that have been that are in the Constitution I'm not sure if they're in the Constitution yeah they look after our human rights they here to ensure that everybody gets their human rights and no one violates them while the commission says it respects the Judgment it fundamentally disagrees and will appeal with papers expected to be filed in the coming weeks KY manga Sac news Johannesburg