Number Of The Day | 16 | 22 September 2026

Number Of The Day | 16 | 22 September 2026 Vusi.Bafetane Tue, 09/22/2026 - 19:37

When Rights Require Repeated Litigation, The System Is Already Too Expensive

A court victory establishes what should happen. The harder test is whether ordinary people can experience that victory without having to fight for it again.

A court order is supposed to settle something. It defines rights, responsibilities and limits. But what happens when winning becomes only the beginning of another fight?

Intercape has secured 16 court judgments ordering public authorities to protect its staff and passengers. The latest High Court judgment also affirmed its right to use the Ngcobo Police Station as a loading and offloading point for safety. Yet the company says intimidation and violence continue, with further legal action planned.

The deeper concern is therefore not whether South Africa has courts capable of making decisions. It does. The concern is what happens between a judgment being handed down and that judgment becoming real in someone’s everyday life.

The Hidden Cost Of Enforcement

South Africa’s Constitution says a court order binds the people and organs of state to which it applies. It also requires organs of state to assist and protect the courts so that they remain effective.

The word effective does a lot of work there.

When enforcement repeatedly fails, the burden does not disappear. It moves.

A company returns to lawyers. Management spends time on security and litigation instead of operations. Passengers alter journeys around risk. Police stations can end up functioning as improvised safety infrastructure. Problems that public institutions were meant to contain begin generating private costs for businesses and citizens.

Seen through that lens, 16 is not simply an impressive legal scorecard. It measures how persistent the underlying problem has been.

Rights Can Become Unequal In Practice

There is another uncomfortable consequence.

A right that becomes usable only after repeated litigation is easier to exercise for those who can afford repeated litigation.

A large company may have the resources to return to court. An ordinary commuter usually does not.

For passengers, freedom of movement and freedom of choice are not experienced as legal abstractions. They are experienced through whether someone can board the transport they prefer, reach work safely and get home without intimidation.

This changes the meaning of competition.

A functioning market needs more than multiple operators. Consumers must actually be able to choose between them. If exercising that choice carries fear or interference, formal competition can exist while practical choice shrinks.

The Number of the Day discussion reaches precisely this human consequence: South Africans need the right to choose which transport they use, but many already face limited alternatives and may travel in vehicles they do not regard as safe.

The Business Climate Includes The Rulebook

Businesses usually evaluate operating environments through visible costs: electricity, labour, taxes, infrastructure, finance and consumer demand.

There is another cost that is harder to price until it fails: institutional predictability.

Companies need reasonable confidence that lawful licences can be exercised, disputes can be resolved and court decisions will produce consequences. When that certainty weakens, the cost eventually appears somewhere else: security, disruption, delayed investment, legal expenses, insurance or management attention.

Francis Herd describes the Intercape dispute as a threat to business because other companies are also watching what it is like to operate in South Africa.

That observation reaches well beyond transport.

A country can have sound laws and functioning courts while still imposing an expensive form of uncertainty if implementation routinely requires extraordinary pressure.

The Judgment Is Not The Finish Line

Court victories matter. Without them, rights can be difficult to establish and failures difficult to challenge.

But the quality of a system cannot be measured only by whether someone can eventually win a case.

It must also be measured by what happens next.

Does the order change behaviour? Does the responsible institution act? Does the commuter become safer? Does the business return to operating rather than litigating?

The strongest rule of law is not one that repeatedly proves itself in court. It is one whose authority becomes ordinary enough that people do not have to keep returning there.

Sixteen victories should therefore prompt a different question.

Not simply: how many times has Intercape won?

But: why has winning had to become a recurring strategy at all?

References

Number of the Day. “16 Court Wins: Why Is Intercape Still Fighting For Protection?” 22 September 2026.

eNCA. “Intercape details ‘culture of violence’ against transport company.” 21 September 2026.

Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Section 165.

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