In this edition of Pulp fictions we have shifted from the usual paper and respondent format. In May this year Judge Johan Froneman delivered a talk called, ‘A lawyer’s response to the current travails of South African constitutionalism’ to the South African Law Deans Association. The talk is reproduced here. In his talk he carefully considers some of the many challenges and tensions faced by not only lawyers and legal scholars, but also by ordinary South Africans living within a post-apartheid context.