SACHS J these [prisoners].”26 (My emphasis.) These views are directly applicable in the present case. In reality no provision has been made either in the 1998 Electoral Act or in the Commission Act or in the regulations of the Commission to enable the prisoners to exercise their constitutional right to register and vote. Nor has the Commission made any arrangements to enable them to register and vote. The Commission accordingly has not complied with its obligation to take reasonable steps to create the opportunity to enable eligible prisoners to register and vote. The consequence has been a system of registration and voting which would effectively disenfranchise all prisoners without constitutional or statutory authority unless some action is taken to prevent that. The applicants have accordingly established a threatened breach of section 19 of the Constitution. [23] In the absence of a disqualifying legislative provision, it was not possible for respondents to seek to justify the threatened infringement of prisoners’ rights in terms of section 36 of the Constitution as there was no law of general application upon which they could rely to do so. Ordinarily Resident [24] It is necessary now to turn to the proper interpretation of the phrase “ordinarily resident” which occupied so much attention during the proceedings. As noted above, the second respondent in his answering affidavit identified the difficulties the Commission had faced in applying this phrase. In his judgment, Els J held that: 26 At 532 -3. 27

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