Retired Supreme Court of Appeal judge Azhar Cachalia has warned that politicians and organised criminal networks are weakening South Africa’s constitutional order through institutional capture and attacks on the courts.

In Freedom Under Law’s annual Ben Beinart memorial lecture earlier this month, Cachalia argued that constitutional democracy faced threats from political leaders operating within it. (Beinart was a Jewish anti-apartheid jurist and activist who died in the 1970s).

“Populist leaders, including some in the ANC and minority parties, pose significant threats to South Africa’s constitutional order,” Cachalia said.

He alleged that criminal networks working with politicians had infiltrated state institutions, including the criminal justice system. Some lawyers were supporting efforts to undermine the courts, promote ethnic nationalism, and stir xenophobic sentiment, he said. Cachalia also warned that some political actors wanted a political system in which the executive exercised unchecked authority.

He described illiberal democracy as a system in which competitive elections continued while constitutional liberties, the rule of law, and institutional checks were weakened. Leaders could use their democratic mandates to change the rules in their own interests and concentrate executive power.

Drawing a qualified comparison with the collapse of Germany’s Weimar Republic, Cachalia warned that economic hardship and institutional failure could encourage demands for order at the expense of accountability. He explicitly said South Africa was not where Germany stood in 1933 when the Weimar Republic collapsed.

Cachalia linked his warning to his experiences of racial exclusion, detention, and banning under apartheid. He concluded that defending constitutional government remained an ongoing responsibility, rather than a completed achievement.