Religious Freedom and Reasonable Accommodation in South Africa: A Framework for Living with Deep Difference

This essay examines the South African legal principle of “reasonable accommodation.” It posits that this principle is a way to balance and harmonize the country’s various enshrined constitutional rights when these rights appear to conflict with each other when simultaneously exercised by different persons in the public realm. The essay further argues that the principle of reasonable accommodation achieves the South African constitutional value of tolerance and satisfies the state’s duty to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil all the constitutional rights. It concludes that reasonable accommodation allows persons to peacefully and constructively co-exist in the public realm, despite deep differences.