At first glance it might seem strange to include, in a document dedicated to protecting rights, a clause that allows rights to be limited. But this is a necessary feature of life in society: people inevitably have competing and conflicting rights.

One person's right to dignity, for example, may clash with another's right to freedom of expression. One citizen's right to be protected from violent suspected criminals will conflict with that suspect's right to freedom of movement.

It's an established principle, then, that rights can be limited. The challenge, though, is to allow them to be limited only under strict conditions. If the Bill of Rights simply allowed any kind of restriction, its very purpose would be undermined.

As a result, section 36 of the Constitution, known as the limitation clause, lays down a test that any limitation must meet. The two central concepts in this test are reasonableness and proportionality. Any restriction on a right must be reasonable and must be proportional in that the impact or extent of the restriction must match the importance of the aim served by the limitation of the right.