Keyword: South African Constitution

The Majority and the 'Meaning' of the Constitution

Picture: gemma.travel Dale T. McKinley - The first and most primary contradiction of the relationship between the Constitution and the majority of South Africans – who are black and poor - is to be found in the way in which the Constitution was forged.  From the very beginning of informal talks in the mid-1980s involving the main component of the exiled national liberation movement - the ANC - and various representatives of the apartheid order, the process of negotiation out of which the Constitution would eventually...

Best of SACSIS: The Problem with South Africa's Constitution

Picture: Xevi V Jane Duncan - A significant debate has arisen between Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Ngoako Ramatlhodi and the University of Cape Town’s Pierre de Vos on the appropriateness of South Africa remaining a constitutional state. In an article in The Times newspaper, Ramatlhodi argued that the supremacy of the constitution is disempowering the democratically elected government, whose decisions are second-guessed by a judiciary that still remains largely untransformed. Ramatlhodi...