The South African Constitution establishes a constitutional democracy with a strong form of constitutional review. The Constitutional Court is required to declare invalid any legislation or conduct of the President which is inconsistent with the Constitution. The author, a former judge of the Constitutional Court, argues that the text of the Constitution has been an important determinant of the Court's jurisprudence, both in relation to the Court's jurisprudence concerning the institutional structures established by the Constitution and its Bill of Rights jurisprudence.

Section 12 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 as amended by the Gender Recognition Act 2004 requires transgender people to disclose their ‘gender history’ to the other party to a marriage prior to the marriage ceremony. Failure to do so enables the other party to exit the relationship through nullity proceedings. This article argues that this provision is discriminatory and encroaches on the right to privacy, breaching Articles 14 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It challenges the idea, implicit in the provision, that non-disclosure of gender history is unethical or fraudulent. Crucially, the article considers and rejects the claim that discrimination against and encroachments on the privacy of transgender people are justified because inadvertent sexual congress with a transgender person is potentially harmful. Finally, if a consent-based right to know exists, it argues that it ought to be trumped by considerations of justice, legal consistency and public policy.

Restitution scholars are almost unanimous in rejecting the term quasi-contract. This essay challenges this view. It begins by demonstrating that many debates among restitution scholars are in fact debates about the boundaries of consent-based liability. This serves as an introduction to the main thesis advanced, which is that the idea of quasi-contract, which is supposed to cover cases in which the parties would have made a contract if conditions allowed them to do so, helps to explain the doctrine better than the conclusory language of unjust enrichment. The essay concludes by situating the argument within the growing literature on the normative foundations of restitution. It argues that quasi-contractual liability should be understood not as part of unjust enrichment, but as a different basis of liability that can help us see what liability for unjust enrichment might be: liability grounded in notions of fairness.

This note considers the Supreme Court decisions in Manchester CC v Pinnock and Hounslow LBC v Powell. It is argued that there are a number of remaining outstanding questions around proportionality, including: deference; section 89, Housing Act 1980; procedural issues; ‘publicness’; and the future landscape.

The case note examines the recent decision of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal in Thanakharn Kasikorn Thai Chamkat (Mahachon) v Akai Holdings Ltd, where Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury adopted the test of irrationality in determining whether a defaulting agent had apparent authority to act on behalf of his principal to confer benefits on a third party. His Lordship further held that a concurrent claim in knowing receipt arose against the third party, and the test of unconscionability is substantially the same as that of irrationality. The present note argues that symmetry of the two tests is not necessary, for knowing receipt and apparent authority deal with issues that are categorically different and serve different purposes. It also examines, in the context of benefits conferred upon an underlying agreement that is void, the oft-overlooked issue as to what amounts to receipt for the purpose of knowing receipt.

The decision of the CJEU in Zambrano was seen as another example of an over-active judiciary in Luxembourg. This comment suggests, on the contrary, that the case has too little reasoning to open any ‘floodgates’ but that in setting out a new logic for EU citizenship, the Opinion offers an approach which limits the global approach to free movement case law and uses citizenship status to include rather than exclude the refugee.

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision in Belmont Park Investments Pty Ltd v BNY Corporate Trustee Services Ltd and Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc is of major significance to lenders, especially those in the global structured finance market. This case confirms the validity of commonly used insolvency-triggered secured-priority flip clauses, and, more generally, suggests a dramatically reduced role for the common law anti-deprivation principle. The decision may not fully resolve market uncertainty, however, given the particular analysis adopted in the case itself (analysed here) and its divergence from the US statutory approach to the same principle.