Senior lecturer in public law at the University of Cape Town, Dr Cathy Powell says the Constitutional Court has no choice but to come up with a carefully crafted remedy to the social grants payments.

The court will on Wednesday hear non-profit organisation Black Sash’s application to seek the reinstatement of the court’s oversight role in the payments.

Speaking on AM Live Dr Powell says the court will have to clean up other people’s mess.

Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini has been widely criticised for her handling of the social security grant agency Sassa and Cash Paymaster Service (CPS) saga.

Opposition parties in Parliament have accused government and the ruling party of disregarding the court’s ruling on the social grants matter.

Others have called for Dlamini to be fired.

This as the crisis of grants payments of more than 17-million grant beneficiaries looms.

“The minister cannot say she did not know. She has an obligation to know and she had about 100 reminders every day for the past year. The court is in effect being asked to do the social development ministry’s work. It would be a very unique remedy for the court to actually have some say over the contractual terms. Maybe this is necessary because the first court order had clearly been flouted. They set up a very good system last time and the ministry ignored it. So this time they don’t only have to come up with a very imaginative creative solution but they have to see whether it gets done.”