| dc.description.abstract | Much of South Africa’s environmental law is relatively new. Most of South
Africa’s judges received their formal legal educations before promulgation of
the major part of our environmental law and almost certainly before
environmental law was taught at universities. In recent years, there have been
increasing instances of cases involving environmental matters coming to the
courts. How are judges performing in these cases? It would appear that the
judges’ performance is rather 'chequered' in environmental cases, which
suggests that the judiciary needs to become more attuned to environmental
law. I call this process, for purposes of this note, ‘greening the judiciary’. What I
mean by this is not that judges must decide all environmental cases in a way
that favours the environment, but that they must correctly consider, interpret
and apply the relevant environmental law, and give environmental
considerations appropriate deliberation. This note aims to identify, in admittedly
somewhat general terms, the current state of environmental decision-making by
judges and to suggest what needs to happen for such decisions to be
improved. | en |
