MADLANGA J
primary implied power exists serve as interpretative tools that point to its existence. As
we now know, the Constitution plays a crucial role in that interpretative exercise.105
[71]
So, the interpretative exercise is not confined to the four corners of a statute. The
answer to the question whether an implied primary power exists is yielded by the usual
interpretative exercise that seeks to establish what a statute or a provision in it means.
There is nothing unusual about this. That, in the main,106 available jurisprudence and
learning on implied powers concerns ancillary implied powers does not mean there
aren’t primary implied powers.
And cases like Masetlha107 and Matatiele
Municipality108 never suggested otherwise. If we were to say they did, we would be
erring. They pronounced on something different, which is what was before them. That
is, in each instance the question was whether the ancillary implied power at issue
existed. They did not in the least purport to declare that there is nothing like an implied
primary power. And they could not have so declared as that was not before the Court.
In other words, they did not suggest that an interpretative exercise can never yield the
result that an implied primary power is provided for in a statute. To put it bluntly, the
question whether there may be an implied primary power was irrelevant to the issues at
hand in those cases. Thus those cases are of no assistance to us in the present matter.
[72]
What I must answer next is whether the power to designate a Judge does exist.
What is clear is that if it does, it is not express, nor is it an ancillary implied power. It
is not a cognate implied power pegged on, and owing its existence to, some primary
power.
See, for example, Hyundai above n 43 at para 24, where this Court held that “it is the duty of a Judicial Officer
to interpret legislation in conformity with the Constitution so far as this is reasonably possible”.
105
106
I do not want to discount the possibility that there may be some jurisprudence or learning that has adopted my
approach because I cannot claim to have even attempted to trawl all that is available out there.
107
Masetlha above n 97.
108
Matatiele Municipality above n 86.
42