Equality | The Van Heerden Case

Was the creation of enhanced pension rights for members of South Africa's new democratically elected parliament, who were overwhelmingly black, discriminatory against a member of the old racist parliament who happened to be white and continued to receive lower pension rates? Justice Moseneke said no, the Constitution allowed for redress for sections of the population previously disadvantaged on grounds of race and gender. Justice Mokgoro disagreed with this reasoning, saying that she agreed with the outcome but on the basis that the discrimination was not unfair. Justice Sachs said that although they disagreed with each other, he agreed with them both and that these were two different constitutional pathways to reach the same constitutionally fair result.