JUDICIAL INTERPRETATION OF ETHNIC MINORITY RIGHTS IN PLURAL STATES: COMPARATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVES IN NIGERIA, INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA

Abstract

Ethnic minorities in plural states occupy a vulnerable constitutional position. Though often recognized in constitutional texts and accorded special protections, they remain susceptible to political exclusion, land dispossession, and erosion of cultural and linguistic identities. Nigeria, India and South Africa reflect this tension with particular clarity. Each contains justiciable minority rights protections, yet a gap persists across all three jurisdictions between constitutional promise and lived reality. This paper argues that the problem lies not in constitutional text but in how courts interpret and apply guarantees when ethnic minority claims are litigated. It examines the interpretational approaches of Nigeria's Supreme Court, India's Supreme Court, and South Africa's Constitutional Court, assessing their practical impact on minority protection across three thematic areas: land and resource rights, language and cultural identity, and security-based restrictions. South Africa's Constitutional Court has embraced transformative purposivism, offering stronger minority protection. India's Supreme Court has developed an expansive interpretive tradition, though its application remains uneven. Nigeria's Supreme Court has tended towards restrictive textualism, limiting the practical reach of constitutional guarantees. The paper concludes that judicial interpretation is a decisive variable in minority protection, and that purposive adjudication is necessary for constitutional guarantees to have meaningful effect in plural states.