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Stu Woolman & Michael Bishop 3
entirely speculative colloquy 1 — the theoretical work of our authors
begins with a close reading of the text and then draws down upon and
engages those jurists and academics who have previously attempted
to make sense of systems of law in constitutional democracies. Even
when we move away from the law to less derivative disciplines, the
authors of this work never for a moment deny the law its autonomy. 2
For a failure to recognise law’s autonomy risks trivialising the laws
that govern us and the concerns of those governed by our law. No such
trivialisation is to be found in this work: All the authors are deeply
committed to the project of constitutionalism in South Africa.
This book benefits immensely from two sources.
The first source is Stu Woolman, Theunis Roux and Michael Bishop
(eds) Constitutional Law of South Africa, 2 nd Edition (2008)(‘CLoSA’).
This four volume treatise is the leading internationally-recognised,
most widely cited, scholarly commentary on the subject. One reason
for its status — in the courts and the secondary literature — is that this
76 chapter work covers every dimension of court practice,
institutional constitutional law and all of the operational provisions
and the substantive provisions of the Bill of Rights. However, what
really distinguishes Constitutional Law of South Africa from other
commentaries, and places it on an equal footing with the finest works
in other jurisdictions, is its sustained engagement with its subject
matter. Many of the chapters are of monograph length and quality. 3
We would be quite remiss, however, if we did not acknowledge that
Constitutional Law of South Africa — and the 40 authors who have co-
1 See S Woolman ‘The South African Constitution as the last great modernist
project’ in S Woolman & M Bishop (eds) Constitutional conversations (2008)
Chapter 2; A Sachs ‘A gentle provocation: A reply to Stu Woolman’ in S Woolman
& M Bishop (eds) Constitutional conversations (2008) Chapter 3.
2 See Woolman (n 1 above) 26-27.
3 Constitutional Law of South Africa takes its readers beyond the black letter law.
It offers complete reconstructions of legal doctrine, provides alternative readings
of constitutional provisions, and proffers appropriate criticism of the judiciary’s
decisions and the legislature’s enactments. Constitutional Law of South Africa
achieves these ends through comprehensive treatment of the case law and
relevant statutes; a thorough review of the secondary literature; and the ability
to draw, where appropriate, on relevant foreign and international jurisprudence.
Constitutional Law of South Africa fills a unique space in the South African legal
academy and the profession. Constitutional Law of South Africa fills a unique
space in the legal academy and the profession. By being both broad and deep, it
holds our basic law together. The book serves as a home for what the editors like
to describe as an ‘ideal community of interlocutors’. Constitutional Law of South
Africa creates a space where academics, practitioners and jurists can engage one
another across the entire range of extant constitutional issues. The table of
contents and the contributors to Constitutional Law of South Africa can be found
in the compact disk at the back of the book. We cannot thank enough those 40
some odd authors for making CLoSA, the CLoSA Conference and this book
possible. Their contributions can now also be found at http://www.westlaw.com.
For more on Constitutional Law of South Africa, see our website, http://
www.closa.co.za. For those who wish to secure the treatise itself, see Juta Law’s
website at http://www.jutalaw.co.za.