## Facts

- Three grocery-store employees (Lawrence, Negal, and Solberg) held or used grocers’ wine licences governed by a statutory liquor-licensing scheme.
- The scheme limited (i) the days and hours when licensed grocers could sell wine and (ii) the categories of alcohol they could sell under the licence.
- Lawrence sold wine after the permitted evening hour.
- Negal sold beer and cider under a licence authorizing only wine sales.
- Solberg sold wine on a statutory “closed day,” defined to include Sundays, Good Friday, and Christmas Day.
- Each was convicted in a magistrates’ court for contravening the statutory licensing restrictions; the High Court dismissed their appeals.
- On further appeal, they challenged the constitutionality of the restrictions under the Interim Constitution’s protections for economic activity and freedom of religion, belief, and opinion.

## Issues

1. Whether statutory limits on the hours of sale and the types of alcohol permitted under a grocer’s wine licence violated the constitutional right to freely engage in economic activity.
2. Whether prohibiting grocers’ liquor sales on “closed days” (including Sunday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day) violated freedom of religion, belief, and opinion by indirectly compelling or endorsing Christian observance.

## Decision

- The court dismissed the appeals and left the convictions in place.
- On economic activity, the court unanimously held the licensing limits were constitutionally permissible regulation and did not violate the right to engage in economic activity.
- On freedom of religion, a majority concluded the closed-day rule did not infringe religious freedom because it regulated a narrow category of commercial conduct and did not compel religious observance; the Interim Constitution was also read as lacking a general prohibition on state “establishment” of religion.
- A dissenting view would have found an infringement based on state endorsement of Christianity and would have severed the offending closed-day provision.
- A separate concurrence would have found an infringement but held it justified under constitutional limitation analysis, joining the disposition upholding the statute.

## Legal Principles

- Constitutional protection for engaging in economic activity permits substantial state regulation through licensing schemes serving public-interest objectives; the right does not guarantee an absence of commercial constraints.
- Regulation with historical religious associations is not unconstitutional merely because of its origins; the key inquiry is whether the measure coerces religious observance or otherwise materially burdens religious freedom.
- Freedom of religion can be implicated by indirect forms of coercion or state endorsement, but the constitutionality of a contested measure may turn on its practical effect and any adequate secular justification.
- Where a measure limits a right, a court may uphold it if the limitation is sufficiently justified under applicable limitation standards; alternatively, an invalid portion may be capable of severance if it can be removed without defeating the legislative scheme.

## Conclusion

The court upheld a liquor-licensing regime restricting what grocers could sell and when they could sell it, finding no unconstitutional interference with economic activity and, by majority reasoning, no impermissible religious coercion in closed-day limits on certain liquor sales, while separate opinions debated endorsement and justification.


S v. Lawrence, 1997 (4) SA 1176 (S. Afr. Const. Ct. 1997)