Impact Story

Dr Melanie Murcott’s scholarship (e.g., Brill, 2022) speaks extensively about the need for courts to recognise that the environmental right entrenched in South Africa is connected to social justice and the fulfilment of all other rights. The courts are taking notice.

 

In 2024, the Constitutional Court handed down a judgment about the relationship between the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression and took into account the environmental right with reference to Murcott’s scholarship. The judgment concerned a cyclist, who, while on a bike ride, took photographs of cage-trapped animals (a baboon and porcupine) that he saw on a farm. He later posted the photos on social media. The farmer alleged that the social media posts violated his right to privacy, while the cyclist claimed to be exercising his right to freedom of expression. In finding that the cyclist had not breached the farmer’s right to privacy, the court engaged with Murcott’s insights that South Africa’s expansive and sophisticated environmental right should not be ignored in such cases. The Constitutional Court acknowledged that cruel practices toward animals relate to the environmental right and that the cyclist was, in effect, exercising his right to freedom of expression to fulfil the environmental right. This is because animal welfare is connected to environmental protection. The judgment shows how innovative legal scholarship can positively shape adjudication about the relationships between humans, the environment, and animals.