Student protests fall under constitutional shield
If one happens to be a student protester with some access to legal representation, one enjoys immense protection against potential authoritarian abuse by the state because of the Constitution, says Pierre de Vos. In an analysis on his Constitutionally Speaking blog, he points out that Section 17 of the Bill of Rights states that ‘everyone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions’.
This right, he says, provides students with important protection when they engage in protest. Furthermore, students on the receiving end of police brutality or the use of excessive force by private security personnel explicitly or implicitly invoke section 12(1) – which guarantees for everyone freedom and security of the person, which includes the right ‘to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources’ – and complain that their bodily integrity has been compromised. De Vos says it is not surprising that some students may invoke the right to protest – but may turn a blind eye to the stipulation that the protest must be conducted peacefully.
‘Most of us champion those aspects of the Bill of Rights that favour us and oppose other parts of the Bill of Rights that we believe is to our disadvantage.’ De Vos adds the demand that no student should be excluded from education merely because he or she cannot afford the cost, is a demand that ‘finds echoes’ in section 29(1)(b) of the Constitution.
This section states that everyone has the right to ‘further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible’. Because universities have an obligation to all students to provide higher education, they cannot close campuses indefinitely and neither are they permitted to cancel all exams to force all students to repeat their year.’
He adds: ‘The Constitution helps to safeguard the democratic space within which the kind of political contestation that student protesters currently engage in can occur. It also provides a powerful language in which one can formulate political demands.’
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
