In 1993 South Africans adopted a transitional Constitution which represented a negotiated settlement to bring to end decades of white minority rule and the systemic discrimination and repression of the apartheid era. This transitional or interim Constitution is eloquently described in its postamble as “a historic bridge between the past of a deeply divided society characterised by strife, conflict, untold suffering and injustice, and a future founded on the recognition of human rights, democracy and peaceful co-existence and development opportunities for all South Africans, irrespective of colour, race, class, belief or sex.” The 1993 transitional Constitution required that the final Constitution to be adopted by the Constitutional Assembly (consisting of the two houses of parliament elected in the first democratic elections sitting together) to comply with 34 Constitutional Principles. Amongst the most important of these was the second Constitutional Principle which provided:

“Everyone shall enjoy all universally accepted fundamental rights, freedoms and civil liberties, which shall be provided for and protected by entrenched and justiciable provisions in the Constitution… .”

The Constitutional Court was required to certify that the 1996 Constitution complied with these 34 Principles which it eventually did on 4 December 1996 after an amended draft of the Constitution was presented to the Court by the Constitutional Assembly. This Constitution entered into force on 4 February 1997.

Download the full speech above

Speech by Prof Sandra Liebenberg
HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law, Department of Public Law, Stellenbosch University.
Email address: sliebenb@sun.ac.za