The courts are recognised as playing an increasingly important role in the realisation and
concretisation of socio-economic rights. However, the implications of these activities for notions of
voice, engagement and access to decision-makers and those in power, are largely not understood.
This study seeks to address key questions around what type of platform for engagement the courts
are providing for more marginalised groups beyond sites of redress, as well as to consider the
impacts of court cases, decisions and remedies on policy, practice and the everyday life of urban
residents. The study utilises a comparative approach between India and South Africa, and examines
two seminal court cases - one in Delhi, the Sealings Case, and the other in Johannesburg, the Olivia
Road Case. The case studies demonstrate that the litigants’ decision to go to court is, in part, closely
linked to the failure of representative democracy and is influenced by the coalitions and alliances of
urban actors. Furthermore, the case studies look at the court as a site of engagement between
citizens, residents and the state in order to see what benefits or dangers exist when engaging in
litigation. The case studies further provide some insights into the implications of being denied access
to the courts and how alternative modes of power-seeking and voicing issues come to the fore. Lastly,
the case studies offer an account of the consequences of litigation and looks at the impact of court
cases on policy, policy-making process, practice and the lives of citizens and notes that these are not
only highly differentiated but also extremely unpredictable. In making sense of the role of the court in
urban governance, the study argues for a conceptualisation of courts as institutions of hegemony, and
pushes Gramsci’s notion to explain courts and court cases as platforms on which litigants can
promote their own hegemonic or counter-hegemonic project. However, courts are not neutral
containers in which these politics unfold; rather they are engaged actors with their own agendas and
hegemonic visions, which they seek to enforce through the decisions that they make and the roles
that they carve out for themselves within the urban governance terrain.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/13657 |
| Date | 05 February 2014 |
| Creators | Rubin, Margot Wendy |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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