Albutt v Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Others is a 2010 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which concerned a special presidential dispensation to pardon the perpetrators of politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era.

Almost a decade after the commission concluded its work, in November 2007, President Thabo Mbeki announced that, in order to deal with the "unfinished business" of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he would institute a special dispensation under which he would pardon individuals who claimed to have been convicted of politically motivated criminal offences on any date before 16 June 1999.

[3][4] Represented by Geoff Budlender,[5] they argued that the President's exclusion of victims was inconsistent with section 33 of the Constitution, with the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000 (PAJA), and with the common law requirement of procedural fairness.

Unlike the High Court, therefore, it did not make a determination on the question of whether the President has a broader duty to consult victims before considering any application for pardon.

The non-governmental organisations' argued that procedural fairness itself implied a duty to consult the victims, procedural fairness in turn being grounded in three sources of law: the common law, section 33 of the Constitution (requiring just administrative action), and PAJA (applying only to administrative action as defined in PAJA).

However, Ngcobo noted obiter that the non-governmental organisations' argument from common law was "attractive", citing in that connection his own dissent in Masetlha v President.

In a brief concurring judgment, Justice Johan Froneman wrote separately to outline further reasons for his agreement with Ngcobo's approach.

Albutt is frequently discussed alongside the Constitutional Court's judgment in Masetlha v President, which was handed down in November 2007 and from which Ngcobo had dissented.

The Masetlha court had held that, per Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke, "It would not be appropriate to constrain executive power to requirements of procedural fairness, which is a cardinal feature in reviewing administrative action.

[13] The Constitutional Court later addressed this tension directly in Law Society of South Africa v President, in which Ngcobo's successor, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng, explained that Albutt concerned the duty to consult not as an element of procedural fairness (as in Masetlha) but as an element of rationality.