Constitutional Courts in Context

While India, Canada and South Africa (SA) share in common certain aspects of their judicial and political processes, they remain in many respects very disparate societies. One of the ways in which they differ is in the status of women. Judicial independence and accountability as contextual factors are somewhat easier to gauge than the other factors as these elements can be assessed using attributes of the judiciary which are generally either specified in the constitution or in a statute. Although Canada is as a nation older than India, as is its supreme court, its justiciable Charter of Rights and Freedoms is of recent vintage. Of more recent vintage still is the South African Constitution, the "birth certificate" of a new nation, which was signed into law by President Nelson Mandela in 1996. "Transformative" and "aspirational" are words used frequently to describe South Africa&s;s 1996 Final Constitution.