MOKGORO J regulation which expressly restricts these grants to South African citizens only.27 [31] This Court has accepted without comment the constitutional propriety of the practice of including in legislation a provision empowering the President to determine the date of operation of legislation.28 In Ex Parte Minister of Safety and Security and Others: In re S v Walters and Another this Court was asked to examine the constitutionality of a provision in legislation that had not yet been brought into force but declined to do so on the ground that the challenge to that provision was not properly before it.29 This case is, however, somewhat different to Walters. The Court in Walters was invited to consider matters of interpretation of the provision in question without the applicants challenging the constitutionality of a provision. Here, this Court is confronted with an order declaring a legislative provision invalid and inconsistent with the Constitution where that provision has not yet been brought into force. That order was 27 Regulation 9 requires applicants to submit an identity document issued in South Africa with a thirteen-digit identity number. In terms of sections 4 and 8 of the now repealed Identification Act 72 of 1986 and sections 3, 7 and 8 of the replacement Identification Act 68 of 1997, permanent residents who are non-South African citizens can be (and are) issued with South African identity documents containing thirteen-digit identity numbers except that the last three digits of that number indicate that the person is not a South African citizen. 28 Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association of SA and Another: In re Ex Parte President of the Republic of South Africa and Others 2000 (2) SA 674 (CC); 2000 (3) BCLR 241 (CC); In re: Constitutionality of the Mpumalanga Petitions Bill, 2000 2002 (1) SA 447 (CC); 2001 (11) BCLR 1126 (CC). See also Ex Parte Minister of Safety and Security and Others: In re S v Walters and Another 2002 (4) SA 613 (CC); 2002 (7) BCLR 663 (CC) at para 71. In Pharmaceutical Manufacturers at paras 76 and 85-6 and Walters at para 73, this Court further held that this is a public power which the President is obliged to exercise lawfully and for the purpose for which it was given in the enactment and that the exercise of this power will be reviewable by the courts in certain circumstances. 29 Id Walters at paras 73-5. 20

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