FRONEMAN J duties that apply to the police. The acts of state organs are at the same time acts for which the state is liable, because they are the state‘s own acts.31 [110] In Mhlongo32 Corbett JA dismissed direct delictual liability on the part of the state on the basis that although it was ―an interesting theory‖, the view that all members of the police force are prima facie servants of the state was ―too well entrenched in decisions of this Court‖ to justify discarding vicarious responsibility as the basis for state liability.33 [111] But that was before the advent of the Constitution. In a candid assessment of criticism directed at the application of vicarious liability in K,34 the majority in the Supreme Court of Appeal re-appraised the state of affairs: ―I think that [the] criticism is only partly correct. I have pointed out that both the state and the policemen personally were held to be under a duty to protect K. In those circumstances it might be that the court could justifiably have found that the state, acting through its employees, was directly liable for its own delictual omission. That would have been consistent with a line of cases that have been decided in this court . . . that purport to be founded upon vicarious liability, but might better be said to have been founded upon direct liability of the state, acting through the instrument of its employees.‖35 (Footnotes omitted.) 31 See D‘Oliveira, State Liability for the Wrongful Exercise of Discretionary Powers (Doctoral Thesis) 1976 at 477-88; and compare Wiechers above n 9 at Chapter 7 and Baxter above n 9 at 631-2. 32 Above n 16. 33 Mhlongo above n 16 at 566H-567A. The provisions of the State Liability Act (above n 13) formed the sole basis of state liability then. That is no longer necessarily the case: sections 2 and 8(1) of the Constitution make the state subject to the Constitution and in particular the Bill of Rights. 34 Wagener above n 2. 35 Above n 4 at para 34. 44