After South Africa’s first democratic elections, the newly elected parliament would double as a Constitutional Assembly and would be responsible for writing the final constitution. The Constitutional Assembly was given just two years to complete this mammoth task. It was agreed that the new text had to comply with the Constitutional Principles entrenched in the first stage of negotiations and that the Constitutional Court would then decide if the text complied with the Principles.
Thus, while the Interim Constitution was a politically negotiated product, the final Constitution was not. The final Constitution was produced through extensive public involvement facilitated by the first democratic parliament and led by Cyril Ramaphosa. Here, we look at the nitty-gritty of how the Constitutional Assembly got down to the business of building a solid foundation upon which to build a new country. We come to understand how many controversial issues kept the constitutional drafters battling until the very end. We see that the final Constitution was the outcome of a complex and rich process.
Establishing THE CONSTITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY
