Law Commons^™

In controversial constitutional cases, courts sometimes grant the government an extended period of time to correct rights violations — what I call “remedial grace periods” — hoping that the postponed implementation of change will temper backlash. The most well-known example of such remedial delay followed the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education II. This Article spotlights a more recent remedial grace period. In Minister of Home Affairs v. Fourie, South Africa’s highest court ruled that depriving same-sex couples of marriage was unconstitutional. It could have implemented same-sex marriage immediately by reading it into law, but …