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“Up to this point, and on the facts of the matter, interpreting the act in the sense that the reference to a father is limited to the biological or natural father is simply untenable, it will not make sense, it will not agree with the understanding of what a father it is and will lead to absurd results. “
With regard to the mother, a family ombudsman’s report compiled before the girl’s death stated that she intended to do better and therefore had been given full parental rights and responsibilities. Judge Kollapen said he couldn’t ignore this.
The grandmother, he said, had the right to be called a mother “in truth, in reality and in law.”
“From time immemorial, grandparents and grandmothers in particular, played a dominant and defining role in the lives of millions of people.
“While what they did was prompted by an instinctive sense of responsibility and a deep and abiding love for their grandchildren, it was also long embedded in the political, economic and social destruction that apartheid brought to the lives of black families, ” he said.
He said that the father’s behavior was in stark contrast to that of the grandmother, who “from her discharge from the hospital after the birth until the day of her death, provided, supported, cared for and sacrificed so much with love. She acted in the most disinterested way, to attend to all her needs, fighting for her dignity and rights ”.
Judge Kollapen ordered that the mother and grandmother inherit the estate equally.
- This article was first published by GroundUp
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