MADLANGA J [24] If there ever was a highly and disturbingly invasive violation of privacy, this is it. It is violative of an individual’s inner sanctum.42 In Hyundai Langa DP held that “privacy is a right which becomes more intense the closer it moves to the intimate personal sphere of the life of human beings and less intense as it moves away from that core”.43 What I have typified – insofar as it relates to the sharing of intimate personal confidences – certainly falls within the “intimate personal sphere”. RICA allows interception of all communications. The sanctioned interception does not discriminate between intimate personal communications and communications, the disclosure of which would not bother those communicating. Nor does it differentiate between information that is relevant to the purpose of the interception and that which is not. In other words, privacy is breached along the entire length and breadth of the “continuum”.44 And this intrusion applies equally to third parties who are not themselves subjects of surveillance but happen to communicate with the subject. That means communications of any person in contact with the subject of surveillance – even children – will necessarily be intercepted.45 [25] There can be no question that the surveillance of private communications limits the right to privacy. Unsurprisingly, the respondents do not dispute this. Is that limitation reasonable and justifiable under section 36(1) of the Constitution?46 42 Compare Bernstein above n 4 at para 67. 43 Hyundai Investigating Directorate: Serious Economic Offences v Hyundai Motor Distributors (Pty) Ltd In re: Hyundai Motor Distributors (Pty) Ltd v Smit N.O. [2000] ZACC 12; 2001 (1) SA 545 (CC); 2000 (10) BCLR 1079 (CC) (Hyundai) at para 18. Here is how Ackermann J’s words from Bernstein above n 4 were characterised in Mistry v Interim National Medical and Dental Council of South Africa [1998] ZACC 10; 1998 (4) SA 1127 (CC); 1998 (7) BCLR 880 (CC) at para 27: 44 “Ackermann J posited a continuum of privacy rights which may be regarded as starting with a wholly inviolable inner self, moving to a relatively impervious sanctum of the home and personal life and ending in a public realm where privacy would only remotely be implicated.” Any arbitrary or unlawful interception of children’s communications is at odds with South Africa’s international law obligations under Article 16(1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, which provides that “[n]o child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or privacy, family, home or correspondence” and Article 10 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, 1 July 1990, which provides that “[n]o child shall be subject to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family home or correspondence”. 45 46 Section 36 provides as follows: 20