Abstracts

18 been applied explicitly in the realm of housing and expanded to decisions on health care and education through the shared language of the constitution. T.A.C. in 2002 was vital to socioeconomic law in that it brought the reasonable measures test to a domain other thanhousing, but few landmark cases since have developed the full extent of what health care can be. Health care presents multiple opportunities for the application of the incrementalistic principle. As a logistical matter for litigation, the infrastructure of the reasonable measures test in this arena is primed for producing case results that expand the right’s scope. Hospital infrastructure, in the same way that the courts treat educational infrastructure, can be included as a central component of the right. Shorter wait times suggest another possibility. Where inadequacies are seen, the incrementalistic principle can be applied. Basic education is an outlier in that it is requisitely made immediately realizable by the government. I forecast that the courts will continue expanding the scope of the right to education in order to rectify inequalities between schools. Higher education, however, has not yet seen substantial cases to the same extent as have the other rights. With language quite similar to that of the rights to housing and health care, it seems reasonable to assume that higher education eventually could receive the same treatment. Although there is bountiful case law surrounding the right to housing, that right itself can be expanded further based on conditions considered central to it. Progress has rendered the features of the right to be fluid. What constitutes adequate housing has changed over time and may well be subject to further change in the future. The positive rights to housing, health care, and education are features of South African law that are as fundamental as any natural right. They were written as a way of redressing the economic inequalities that have perpetuated from the apartheid era. The words of the constitution are more than laws; they are the written embodiment of a very specific aspect of national identity, the struggle of a people, and the dream of a more equal tomorrow. The courts’ reasonable measures test, and the incrementalistic remedial path that it manifests in, serves as the judicial course of action for realizing those rights that are so central to the story of South Africa. When the country ratified their modern constitution, the people did more than codify the principles of their government: they made a statement about what it meant to be South African in the present and what they hoped for in time ahead. The judiciary is the bastion of that vision, the interpreter of the law, and the future of socioeconomic rights.