The Constitutional Court of South Africa has developed a considerable body of caselaw in which it has affirmed SEC rights while recognising its limited power to control broad issues of government policy. For instance, the court has accepted that the government must be able to evict squatters who are illegally occupying private land, but has laid down that the government should provide at least temporary accommodation for squatters who would be in a desperate plight if they were evicted. The court has adopted a basic doctrine of “reasonableness”, under which the court may require the State to take measures to meet its constitutional obligations and may evaluate the reasonableness of those measures, but will determine their reasonableness in the light of budgetary implications and will not seek to rearrange the State’s budgets. In the New Zimbabwean Constitution? The makers of the new Zimbabwean constitution would do well to follow the lead of South Africa in its treatment of SEC rights. Zimbabwe faces many of the same socioeconomic problems as South Africa and has fewer resources to deal with them. Some provision must be made for SEC rights in the new constitution if it is to be accepted by the broad mass of the people as “their” constitution; but if the new constitution makes those rights unenforceable, the needy sections of society — the majority of our people, in other words — are likely to reject the constitution as irrelevant at best and fraudulent at worst. Making those rights enforceable is feasible, as South Africa has shown, and does not necessarily lead the courts to intrude into areas of policy which are the preserve of the Legislature and the Executive. It might, however, allow people to ensure, at least to a limited extent, that the government expends its resources wisely and in their interests. ___________________________ 28