Abstract:
Under the current constitutional dispensation the judiciary is not only
constitutionally authorised, but also constitutionally obliged, to oversee exercises
of public power; including the conduct of the executive.1 It does so through
judicial review. In judicial review proceedings, courts must follow a principled
and justified approach to choosing the appropriate standards on a possible
‘continuum of constitutional accountability’ against which impugned exercises of
public power should be measured. This is what is demanded by the separationof-
powers doctrine: courts ought not to invoke legal norms formalistically or
arbitrarily when reviewing public power.
