UNTERHALTER AJ
period of 24 months to permit Parliament to complete its work. During the period of
suspension, interim relief must be afforded to persons with print and visual disabilities.
A reading-in is thus warranted. The question is what should this reading-in contain?
[103] A reading-in remedy must be carefully tailored to address the constitutional
defect that has been established. To do more is to trespass upon the constitutional
powers of Parliament. Courts are not elected. Their constitutional mandate is to provide
an effective remedy that cures a specific defect. Remedial ambitions beyond this remit
make of the courts Olympians, which they, assuredly, are not. Blind SA’s ambitious
prayers for relief well illustrate how its justified concern for parliamentary delay
translate into expansive remedial claims as to what this Court can and should do. Such
claims are to be assessed with care, indeed caution.
[104] I reiterate the case Blind SA brought to this Court. The challenge concerns
published literary works, and, with some generous latitude, artistic works that may form
part of a literary work. It focuses upon the rights of copyright owners to authorise the
rendering of such works into accessible format copies for the use of persons with print
and visual disabilities. Blind SA does not make out a case in respect of unpublished
works; nor as to the importation and export of literary works in accessible format copies;
nor as to the domestic legal regime that would be required to ensure reciprocity under
the Marrakesh Treaty to facilitate imports of such works; nor, more generally, as to how
best to domesticate the Marrakesh Treaty so as to permit South Africa to ratify this
treaty; nor as to how the distribution of these works should best be permitted for persons
with print and visual disabilities. These matters were addressed, in part, in argument,
and particularly in the contentions advanced as to remedy. But a case cannot be reverse
engineered from remedy to rights. The remedy must cure the infringements of rights
that have been established.
[105] Once the ambit of the case is properly demarcated, the wholesale adoption of
section 19D cannot be ordered as interim relief. It covers grounds beyond the challenge
established by Blind SA. It is legislation intended to permit South Africa to ratify the
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