Abstract

This article analyses selected jurisprudence of various courts in South Africa on class actions. It traces the development of class actions since 1994 to date. The selected cases have been chosen because they demonstrate progression from courts’ initial narrow approach – where class actions were confined to cases involving violation of the rights contained in the Constitution to now extending them to claims outside the Bill of Rights. To a limited extent, the article borrows good practices from the developed Canadian law detailing their procedure for class actions as a comparison with the position in South Africa. The conclusion reached is that there has been a fair progress in the development of class actions.

摘要

本文分析了南非各法院关于集体诉讼的精选判例。它追溯了自 1994 年以来集体诉讼的发展。选定的案例之所以被选中，是因为它们展示了从法院最初的狭隘方法——集体诉讼仅限于涉及侵犯宪法所载权利的案件到现在将其扩展到权利法案之外的索赔的进展。文章在有限的程度上借鉴了加拿大发达法律的良好做法，详细说明了集体诉讼的程序，与南非的情况进行了比较。得出的结论是，集体诉讼的发展取得了公平的进展。