A thread from my masters and RE: evictions

...although socio-
economic rights are recognised under the constitution, even where the claim to these rights in a given case succeeds, their recognition alone amounts to what Madlingozi calls ‘distribution without dismantling’

What is meant by this is that resources are
distributed or redistributed but the systemic nature of oppression is not
interrogated or dismantled.

Thus Black people who had historically been ‘othered’ and
oppressed are still socially excluded and racialised under ‘post’-apartheid
constitutionalism.

The condition of socio-economic rights under the constitution represents an inherent limitation of rights discourse which influences the non-
actualisation of socio-economic rights as a mechanism to fundamentally address
racialised oppression and poverty created by conquest.

Non-actualisation of socio-economic rights is not simply due to the constraint that constitutionalism places on socio-economic rights interpretation;
rather the problem lies with what Modiri calls ‘law’s poverty’, and Sibanda’s critique of the constitution as ‘not purpose made’.

Law’s Poverty concerns the failure of law to see poverty as form of oppression and domination. Poverty is not a natural state of affairs but a direct result of a history of subjugation through policies and through legal regimes.

Our failure to address historical injustice through socio-economic rights is attributable not to conservative jurisprudence or bad policy but rather an inherent failure of constitutionalism to see poverty as an outcome of conquest and of ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’.

constitutional blindness indicates that, in fact, the post-apartheid constitution is not purpose-made to deal with historical injustice and historical
conditions of subjugation in a substantive manner.

Further it should not be considered as the source from which the tools for the eradication of poverty should be
gathered.

In essence, despite the move towards transformative constitutionalism and despite the inherent limits of transformative constitutionalism already heavily debated, constitutionalism post-apartheid is inherently disconnected from poverty eradication.