South Africa is the country that we fought for but this is not the society we fought for, declared Justice Albie Sachs on Thursday at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection’s Conference on Seeking the Ethical Foundations of the South African Nation.

He highlighted that while it was essential to acknowledge progress, "massive inequality” existed, and much work needed to be done.

South Africa's Bill of Rights was meant to "guard [it] against itself", Sachs stated.

Meanwhile, Justice Yvonne Mokgoro spoke about the ethical foundations of South Africa and said that the conference had come at the right time.

She urged that the South African Constitution was important.

“As long as this Constitution stands, those are the objectives we need to fulfil if we want to be a better country, in a family of nations. For all intents, the Constitution is the ethos of what South Africa should do,” added Mokgoro.

Former University of the Witwatersrand Student Representative Council president Shaeera Kalla said, “everyday we see that our struggle was an unfinished struggle. Some lives seem to matter more than others.”

She said South African universities were a microcosm because they excluded the large percentage of youth.

“We refuse to have anything less than a societal structure. Free education is not a new demand. We don’t need fancy commissions to look into that,” she said of the Commission of Inquiry into Higher Education and Training set up to look into the issue of fee-free higher education in South African. 

Sachs, meanwhile, said if one had to do "a paternity test on the South African Constitution", referenced across the board at the conference, the name of Oliver Tambo would come up.

“If there was ever a human being who had ethical elements, it was Tambo. It is so hard to convey how powerful Tambo was,” he said.