Gareth Prince

Gareth Prince is a Rastafarian from Cape Town whose wish to practise law began the longest legal fight over cannabis in South Africa. For twenty years he argued that the state should make room for his faith. He lost that argument in the Constitutional Court, before the African Commission and at the United Nations. Then, with others, he made a different one, about privacy, and in 2018 the same court agreed: adults may use, possess and grow cannabis in private.^[1][2][3]

His cases are a study in how the same facts can fail as a religious claim and succeed as a claim to be left alone.

A choice between faith and career

Prince, born in 1969, completed the academic requirements to become an attorney. The next step was a period of community service, and for that the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope had to find him “a fit and proper person”. He disclosed two previous convictions for possessing cannabis and said that, as a Rastafarian, he would go on using it. The society refused to register his contract. As his complaint to the UN put it, he had to choose between his faith and his career.^[1]

His case described the religion’s use in detail: cannabis is smoked through a chalice as part of communion at religious gatherings and burnt as incense, and used at home to bathe in, to smoke, drink and eat. There were then about 12,000 Rastafarians in South Africa.^[1]

Five votes to four

The Cape High Court dismissed his challenge in March 1998 and the Supreme Court of Appeal in May 2000. On 25 January 2002 the Constitutional Court ruled against him by five votes to four. The majority accepted that the law limited the religious rights of Rastafarians but held the limit justified: there would be “no objective way” for police to tell religious use from any other.^[1][2]

Four judges dissented. Justice Albie Sachs wrote that the Constitution obliges the state “to walk the extra mile” to accommodate a religious minority.^[2]

Africa and the United Nations

Prince took the case abroad. The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, at its session in Dakar in late 2004, found no violation; the government, it said, was “better placed” to judge what suited its citizens. Prince told the Mail & Guardian he was asking only for “a reasonable accommodation” of his beliefs, not for decriminalisation.^[4][5]

On 31 October 2007 the UN Human Rights Committee also found no breach. It accepted that cannabis is an essential part of the religion, but held that an exemption would need a system to import and distribute cannabis that could leak into general circulation, so a ban without exceptions was justified.^[1]

Forum	Year	Claim	Result
Constitutional Court	2002	Religious exemption	Lost, 5–4
African Commission	2004	Religious exemption	No violation
UN Human Rights Committee	2007	Religion, equality, minority rights	No breach
Western Cape High Court	2017	Privacy	Won
Constitutional Court	2018	Privacy	Won, unanimous

From religion to privacy

Prince returned to court with a claim that did not depend on faith at all. With Jeremy Acton, founder of the Dagga Party, and Jonathan Rubin, he argued that the ban on using and growing cannabis at home violated the right to privacy. The Western Cape High Court agreed in March 2017.^[3]

On 18 September 2018 the Constitutional Court confirmed it unanimously, in a judgment by the Acting Chief Justice, Raymond Zondo. Criminalising the possession, use or cultivation of cannabis by adults for personal consumption in private was unconstitutional. Parliament was given 24 months to change the law, and in the meantime adults could use, possess and grow cannabis in private.^[3]

What it changed

The ruling made no exception for religion and needed none: it covers every adult, Rastafarian or not. Buying and selling stayed illegal. Parliament’s answer, the Cannabis for Private Purposes Act, was signed in 2024 but had not been brought into force by 2026.^[3] The argument Prince lost as a believer, he won as a citizen.