The Soobramoney Case
1997
Soobramoney v Minister of Health
Whether the Court should interfere with a medical decision on priority access to expensive dialysis.
In concurring with a judgment for the Court by Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson, Justice Sachs stated that rationing was built into the very nature of the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights, and that appropriate bioethical, medical, and legal groups at the hospitals were better suited than Judges in determining who should have priority access to expensive dialysis with a limited number of machines available.
