No branch of government superior: Ngcobo

No branch of government is superior to others in the service of the Constitution, former chief justice Sandile Ngcobo said on Tuesday.

The Constitution was a "promissory note", he told a special joint sitting of the National Assembly and National Council of Provinces.

"It is a promise of a new society that is based on democratic values, social justice, and fundamental human rights," he said.

The people of South Africa had entrusted the responsibility to establish this society to the three branches of government.

Each branch of government thus had to observe the constitutional limits on its powers and authority.

"There is no branch that is superior to others in the service of the Constitutional mission of the Republic," Ngcobo said.

Be it the judiciary, the legislature, or the executive.

In addition to ensuring they observed the constitutional limits on their powers and authority, government should seek to maintain public confidence.

In the case of the judiciary that confidence was not earned by virtue of a court being pro or anti the executive, he said.

The court did not earn the public's confidence merely by overturning legislative Acts on review or by consistently upholding them.

"It is earned by the judiciary demonstrating through its conduct and the well-reasoned judgments it produces that it holds the scales of justice evenly," Ngcobo said.

"Public confidence is earned when the judiciary demonstrates in the words of the Constitution that it is independent subject to the Constitution and the law, which it must apply impartially and without fear, favour, or prejudice."

After all, judges owed allegiance to nothing except the Constitution and the law.

"The judicial branch of government will only have the confidence of the people itself if it is truly independent," Ngcobo said.

The special sitting was called for Parliament to bid farewell to Ngcobo and to welcome Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.