This publication places into the public domain much of the content of the symposium ‘A Delicate Balance: The place of the judiciary in a constitutional democracy’ that the Wits Law School organized in November 2005 in honour of the former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson. The symposium was a time and a space for the rigorous (and vigorous) exchange of views on what can be seen as the most crucially significant enterprise of the South African nation over the past ten years resulting from the struggle against apartheid-the writing, the interpreting, and the living of a constitution with rights for all those who live in a democratic South Africa.