The emblem of the Constitutional Court can be seen as a deeply culturally symbolic image, depicting the silhouettes of individuals under a large tree. This imagery can be seen as a reference to the traditionally African custom of “justice under a tree” during which disputes and legal matters were confronted and resolved through meetings held under a large and often socio-culturally important tree. The symbol of the tree can also be correlated to ideologies of strength and wisdom, thus allowing this emblem to serve the symbolic function of perpetuating ideologies in which the court is viewed as an insightful body which dutifully protects and upholds the legislature outlined within the Constitution. The use of this inherently African imagery within the emblem of this institution can also be characterised as signifying the commitment of this institution to its African roots, despite the presence of international cultural artefacts and languages within this space.
The use of silhouettes in order to depict the individuals within this emblem can also be regarded as a noteworthy decision, as the silhouettes cannot easily be attributed any characteristics such as race; gender or age, but rather can simply be grouped together through their humanoid qualities, thus invoking the discourse of all individuals being equal in front of the new democratic law and thereby perpetuating the ideology of the court being fair and just. This use of silhouette can also be seen to allow the few individuals depicted within the emblem to represent the South African nation as a whole, as the individuals possess no discernable identities, therefore reinforcing the ideologies of unity and nationalism and the discourse which states that the court is an arena in which the nation is able to actively participate in order to build a better democracy.
This sign can also be seen as consisting of individual gold plaques. These plaques can be characterised as an instance of duplication, as each sign contains the exact same statement:
“The first Constitutional Court of South Africa, established under the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1993, was opened by President N.R. Mandela on 14. 02. 1995. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Let justice be administered in this Court without fear, favour or prejudice.”
in each of the eleven official languages. This use of all the official languages can also be seen as in accordance with the national language policy, which attempts to “promote the equitable use of the 11 official languages” (Department of Arts and Culture, 2002:10) in all state institutions. Each plaque can be seen as possessing the informational function of recording and conveying information regarding the establishment of the court, whereas the plaques as a whole can be seen to symbolically represent the multilingual and highly diverse nature of South African society. The concurrent use of these visual and linguistic elements in order to convey symbolic and factual information can thus allow the sign to be characterised as a multimodal sign.
The placement of each plaque within the sign as a whole can also be seen to possess symbolic meaning. This is evident as, despite the fact that the language policy of South Africa attempts to “ensure redress for the previously marginalised official indigenous languages” (Department of Arts and Culture, 2002:10) by promoting the use of these languages over the colonial languages of English and Afrikaans, the sign placed in the court can be seen to offer a position of higher prestige to three languages, namely Zulu; Afrikaans and English. This prestige is evident as both Zulu and Afrikaans are placed at the top of the lists of plaques on either side of the emblem and English is provided with the most prominent central position directly under the emblem. As mentioned in previous posts, the placement of the English translation may be attributed to the nature of the court as a tourist destination, however, the placement of these languages can still be seen to illustrate the higher de facto prestige attributed to languages such as English within the South African context, as the wall upon which this sign was mounted was long enough to allow each translation to be placed directly next to each other alongside the emblem.
This sign can be characterised as an ideal representation of a top-down sign which was commissioned and mounted by the administrative body of the Constitutional Court, as seen in the fact that it makes use of elements such as a standardised font and a border around each plaque to enhance the official nature of the sign. The top-down elements of this sign are also evident in the presence of the official court emblem and the professional design of this sign, as is apparent in the use of expensive materials such as high-quality woods and gold-plating.