Teaching Transparency Through the Lens of Administrative Justice in South Africa

Résumé

Transparency is a vital constituent of the South African constitutional order. At the heart of this order lies a commitment to ensuring open, responsive and accountable governance. This is in large part achieved through the use of administrative-justice tools; including the judicial review of administrative action in the courts. In this Chapter, I illustrate how I teach ‘transparency through the lens of administrative justice’ in my Masters’ course, ‘Administrative Justice & Open Governance’, by way of a thick pedagogical paradigm that gives the notion of ‘transparency’ greater tangibility. I begin by highlighting the interplay between openness and responsiveness as necessary ingredients of transparency which in turn foster accountability and, hence, good governance. I then explain why administrative law matters as a distinctive discipline in the good-governance endeavour. Related to this, I show how the principles of administrative law interface with other legal disciplines (such as contract and criminal justice), in a way that reveals its pervasiveness, and thereby the importance of transparency principles across the board. I then focus on the specific ‘administrative justice / open governance interface’ in the South African administrative-law regime. I do so by elucidating how transparency animates both the substantive review grounds for administrative action, and the procedural tools provided for in this regime’s primary statute, the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 3 of 2000. I conclude with a cautionary note that ‘transparent and accountable government’ is a lodestar we should never lose sight of.