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South Africa: International Law Provisions of 1996 Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

John Dugard
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Extract

In 1993 the South African Parliament adopted an Interim Constitution which came into effect on April 27, 1994 [33 I.L.M. 1043 (1994)]. This Constitution, which brought to an end 40 years of apartheid, was negotiated by political groups which in most instances were unelected and simply reflected the political realities of the time. For this reason it was approved only as an Interim Constitution pending the adoption of a final Constitution by a democratically elected Parliament sitting as a Constitutional Assembly. However, as the 1993 Interim Constitution was a political compromise between rival groups, it was agreed that the final Constitution would have to comply with 34 Constitutional Principles contained in the 1993 Constitution and that a Constitutional Court would be empowered to pronounce on the compliance of the final Constitution with these principles.

Type
Legislation and Regulations
Information
International Legal Materials , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , May 1997 , pp. 744 - 758
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1997

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References

* Reproduced from the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Act 108 of 1996, Chapter 2, sections 7–39, Chapter 11, sections 198–201 and Chapter 14, sections 231-233. The ellipses indicate omissions in the text. The Introductory Note was prepared for International Legal Materials by John Dugard, Professor of Law, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa and I.L.M. Corresponding Editor for Southern Africa. The Constitutional Court gave its approval to the Constitution on December 4, 1996 and the President of South Africa assented to the Constitution on December 10, 1996. The new Constitution will take effect in stages, fully replacing the Interim Constitution in 1999.

[The international law provisions of the 1993 South African Interim Constitution, with an Introductory Note by John Dugard, appear at 33 LL.M. 1043 (1994).]