ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the manner in which the promise of the rights has been fulfilled and to assess the extent to which any of' the critics mounted a valid criticism against the inclusion of these rights within the South African constitutional instrument. In this analysis, the relationship between a conservative legal culture which was dominated by formal reasoning, in which substantive engagement with legal concepts was eschewed, and where the concept of positive liberties promoted by the law was regarded with great suspicion—and the promise of the constitutional text, especially within the context of Sachs's groundbreaking work, will be considered. The analysis initially falls into two parts; first, an examination of the three early cases that laid the foundation for socioeconomic rights jurisprudence and, second, a subsequent set of potentially more expansive decisions. Finally, the relationship between this approach to rights arid new conceptions of the developmental state will be considered.
