Judgment No. SC 54/2018 Case No. SC 228/14 installed at the City’s expense. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, it was held that the quantity of water required for dignified human existence in compliance with s 27 of the Constitution was 42 litres per person per day. The court also concluded that the City had no authority in law to install prepaid meters and that the disconnection of water supply, once the free basic water limit had been exhausted, constituted an unlawful discontinuation of water supply. On further appeal and cross-appeal, the Constitutional Court set aside the orders made by both the High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal. The court adopted a more robust and practical approach to the realisation of social and economic rights generally. It is instructive to set out the reasoning of the court at length in order to illustrate the modalities for the progressive implementation of the right to water and other rights of the same genus. To quote O’Regan J, with whose pragmatic approach I respectfully concur: “…. section 27(1) and (2) of the Constitution must be read together to delineate the scope of the positive obligation to provide access to sufficient water imposed upon the state. That obligation requires the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures progressively to achieve the right of access to sufficient water within available resources. It does not confer a right to claim “sufficient water” from the state immediately. …. The fact that the state must take steps progressively to realise the right implicitly recognises that the right of access to sufficient water cannot be achieved immediately. That the Constitution should recognise this is not surprising. At the time the Constitution was adopted, millions of South Africans did not have access to the basic necessities of life, including water. The purpose of the constitutional entrenchment of social and economic rights was thus to ensure that the state continue to take reasonable legislative and other measures progressively to achieve the realisation of the rights to the basic necessities of life. It was not expected, nor could it have been, that the state would be able to furnish citizens immediately with all the basic necessities of life.“ [at paras. 57, 58 and 59] “Moreover, what the right requires will vary over time and context. Fixing a quantified content might, in a rigid and counter-productive manner, prevent an DISTRIBUTED BY VERITAS e-mail: veritas@mango.zw; website: www.veritaszim.net Veritas makes every effort to ensure the provision of reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied. 25