Abstract:
The Constitutional Court's 2005 judgment in Volks NO v Robinson' has been
widely regarded as a setback for the extension of legal rights to opposite-sex
cohabitants. The majority of the court held that an unmarried opposite-sex cohabitant
is not a spouse under the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act
27 of 1990.2 According to Smith, this judgment 'effectively put paid to the judicial extension of matrimonial law to unmarried opposite-sex cohabiting
life partners'.
