Constitution Seventeenth Amendment Act : thoughts on the jurisdictional overlap, the restoration of the Labour Appeal Court and the demotion of the Supreme Court of Appeal

Abstract

Since the inception of the Labour Courts in 1996 there have been problems regarding the alignment of South Africa’s labour dispute resolution institutions and the civil High Courts. The drafters of the post-constitutional Labour Relations Act (LRA) had the goal of instituting the ‘Labour Court and Labour Appeal Court as superior courts, with exclusive jurisdiction to decide matters arising from the Act’. As part of the plan, the Labour Appeal Court (LAC) was envisioned to be the court of final appeal in respect of appeals from the Labour Court.