Reconsidering our legal reasoning, legal culture and vision of law: 20 years after Froneman

This paper reflects on whether and to what extent we have made progress in transforming our formal vision of law to a constitutional vision of law, particularly in the application and interpretation of private law. What was needed for this transformation was a more substantive reasoning that acknowledges the unavoidable connection between law and politics. Following the adoption of the Constitution, different academics identified a disconnect between the legal culture and the transformative aspirations of the Constitution and questioned whether we were equipped to meet the necessary demands. The judgment in the matter between Changing Tides 74 (Pty) Ltd and the Municipality of Johannesburg is considered in this paper to indicate our prevailing formal vision of law, legal culture and legal reasoning.