IN 1964, German judge and philosopher, Ernst Wolfgang Bökenförde, formulated the so-called Böckenförde dilemma in his publication The rise of the state as a process of secularisation. This entails that modern liberal democracies depend on values and conditions that they cannot provide themselves.
Democracies for dignity, healing, justice, freedom and equality, like the young South African democracy, need the right conditions, fertile soil and nurturing to grow and flourish.
American scholar of religion and law, John Witte argues in The Reformation of Rights (2007) that democracies are not only the product of Enlightenment thinking, but also of religious traditions, despite their own ambivalent track records regarding human rights.
Democracies need inputs from intellectual, philosophical, secular, cultural and religious traditions to flourish.
The South African Constitution seeks a life of dignity,…
