degree to be assessed in the concrete legislative and social setting of the measure, paying due regard to the means which are realistically available in our country at this stage, but without losing sight of the ultimate values to be protected.82 At the necessity stage, the Court has held that “when giving appropriate effect to the factor of “less restrictive means”, the court must not limit the range of legitimate legislative choice in a specific area.” For the Court recognizes that “such legislative choice is influenced by considerations of cost, implementation, priorities of social demands, and the need to reconcile conflicting interests.”83 Such case law suggests that proportionality analysis has only limited appeal, and a rather loose application, in other constitutional rights cases in South Africa, although the principle of proportionality itself is generally supported. And in only two economic and social rights cases – involving the right to housing and the right to social security – has the Court engaged in proportionality analysis. First, in Jaftha, the court held that where the state fails to honour its negative obligations with respect to the right to housing, the limitations analysis presented by § 36 rather than the reasonableness inquiry of § 26(2) should be considered. In that case, the Magistrates’ Court Act’s permission of a sale in execution of a person’s home on the basis of failure to pay a “trifling debt” was held by the Constitutional Court as not meeting the reasonable and justifiable standard, given the importance of access to adequate housing, its link to human dignity, the severity of the 82 83 Manamela 2000 (3) SA 1 at para. 33. Id. at para. 49. 17