Chairperson, I'm sure all of us in this House agree that an event such as Sharpeville must never, ever happen again in our history. We believe that indeed we have made some progress in terms of the attainment of human rights for our people. However, most of this progress happened in the short period immediately after freedom in 1994.
Currently, the situation is very different in that our Constitution is under tremendous pressure. Enforcement, protection and observance of our Constitution must occur at all levels of government. It is not only the duty of our courts to ensure that South Africans enjoy their constitutional rights. As Parliament - we ourselves present here today - through our conduct and through the laws that we make, we must ensure that we protect human rights.
Section 8 of the Constitution says, and I quote:
The Bill of Rights ... binds the legislature, the executive, the judiciary and all organs of state.
The courts are only the final arbiters in the enforcement of human rights. They only come in where there has been a lack of enforcement. Of all the arms of government, the executive arm has been the most ineffective when it comes to fulfilling human rights. A good example of the fallout from this inefficiency is the service delivery protests around our country. Parliament made the laws, such as the Municipal Structures Act, which the municipalities are failing to implement because of the lack of leadership from the executive.
The Grootboom case is another example. When the Constitutional Court made a ruling that the late Mrs Grootboom be provided with a house, the other arms of government failed her and she died in 2008 without a house. The other case worth mentioning is when the Constitutional Court ruled that antiretrovirals, ARVs, must be provided to HIV-positive people, it took years for the executive arm to implement that decision. If everyone in the executive did his or her job properly, we would not have had so many court cases. Also, we would have had more taxpayers' money to spend on the poor.
Meanwhile, section 28 of the Constitution provides children with second- generation human rights, which means that government must provide. This right of our children has been very poorly observed by the executive. For example, a child has a right to basic education. But the reality is that many of our children are on the street.
The ID feels very strongly that since the courts are achieving more than the executive in our country, we should focus more resources on the courts by introducing the Indian model whereby any person can write a letter to the courts. Upon receipt of the letter, the courts will investigate and then make a ruling on that particular matter. This will tremendously help our poor people who don't have access to the courts. This will also ensure that the courts become more proactive. Therefore the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development should be aware that we need more resources for our courts so that they may become more proactive and assist us with human rights abuses.
Regarding how far we have come since 1994, the ID will give this government five out of 10 for human rights - that's all. [Time expired.] [Applause.]