Open Access‘N REGSFILOSOFIESE SOEKE NA POLITIEKE GEOORLOOFDHEID: DIE SPANNING TUSSEN PROSEDURE EN SUBSTANSIE Jan-Harm de Villiers
Author(s) -
Jan-Harm De Villiers
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
pretoria student law review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1998-0280
DOI - 10.29053/pslr.v3i.2162
Subject(s) - morality , irrational number , harm , legitimacy , law , political science , sociology , philosophy , law and economics , humanities , geometry , mathematics , politics
This article examines the conflict between procedure and substance. Substance should be favoured above procedure because where substance is at the heart of a legitimacy mechanism, collective decision-making can take place that makes a positive contribution and constructs an ethical society. Lawfulness and morality should be connected to give practical effect to such a model. Apartheid laws were collective decisions that were procedurally lawful, but were morally unsatisfactory. When a citizen faces a law that is immoral, and in terms of Aquinas irrational, it is not a law at all, and it should be resisted.