Equality | The Prinsloo Case - Part 1

This was the Court's first major case dealing with equality under the new Constitution. Justice Sachs was asked to write the lead judgment. He invited his colleagues Justices Laurie Ackerman and Kate O'Regan to join him in what became a Joint decision. The issue related to responsibility for damage created by a fire which spread from a landowner's property and caused damage to a neighbour. The challenged law provided that if the fire spread from an owner who undertook precautionary measures in a fire-controlled zone, the presumption was that the owner had not been negligent. Conversely, if the owner had not ensured that his land was in a fire-controlled zone, the presumption was that the owner had been negligent. Did this raise an equality issue under the Constitution? The judgment said that it did not; all laws provided for differentiation, but equality law in South Africa was designed to provide protection to groups whose human dignity was being infringed by virtue of their belonging to a group subjected to systemic disadvantage.