LEGAL ISSUES The role of the judiciary in achieving the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in South Africa Professor Ntlama-Makhanya ll South Africans remember 1994, the year of the first democratic election, Aas a year of dramatic change. For Professor Ntlama-Makhanya, Professor of Public Law in the Nelson Mandela School of Law, however, it was the adoption of the Constitution in 1996 that marked the date when South Africa finally began to carve out a new identity for itself. The Constitution set out the values on which the new democratic order was to be based, values such as freedom, equality and dignity. However, as Justice Pius Langa, South Africa’s Chief Justice and head of the Constitutional Court from 2005 until his retirement in 2009, points out, ‘What the Constitution proclaims … is one thing. What really matters to the women, men and children of our country is the reality of change and how the constitutional prescripts manifest themselves in their lives’. For Professor Ntlama-Makhanya, this means that the role of the judiciary, and the Constitutional Court in particular, is key to ensuring that all South Africans do indeed benefit from the values enshrined in the Professor Ntlama-Makhanya 59 | University of Fort Hare