Abstract
Contemporary post-democratic jurisprudence on accessing and enforcing socioeconomic
rights has created an impression that South African courts present the only
recourse for victims and potential litigants. While the justiciability of socio-economic
rights is no longer a point of contention, enforcing socio-economic rights remains
contentious. Consequently, this research needs to respond to the question; of whether
the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights requires courts to go beyond the
boundaries of separation of powers to enforce socio-economic rights effectively. This
research goes further to test this research question as a hypothesis. Consequently, a
further comparative inquiry is conducted on whether the non-enforcement of socioeconomic
rights constitutes a denial of access to justice if socio-economic rights
continue to be defined in a limited way and the implementation of court orders is
delayed.