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Full Description
A stirring collection of public talks and essays by an activist and former judge offers an intimate insider's view of South Africa's Constitution.
This stirring collection of essays and talks by activist and former judge Albie Sachs is the culmination of more than 25 years of thought about constitution-making and non-racialism. Following the Constitutional Court's landmark Nkandla ruling in March 2016, it serves as a powerful reminder of the tenets of the Constitution, the rule of law and the continuous struggle to uphold democratic rights and freedoms. We, the People offers an intimate insider's view of South Africa's Constitution by a writer who has been deeply entrenched in its historical journey from the depths of apartheid right up to the politically contested present. As a second-year law student at the University of Cape Town, Sachs took part in the Defiance Campaign and went on to attend the Congress of the People in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was adopted in 1955. Three decades later, shortly after the bomb attack in Maputo that cost him his arm and the sight in one eye, he was called on by the Constitutional Committee of the African National Congress to co-draft (with Kader Asmal) the first outline of a Bill of Rights for a new democratic South Africa. In 1994, he was appointed by Nelson Mandela to the Constitutional Court, where he served as a judge until 2009. We, the People contains some of Sachs' most memorable public talks and writings, in which he takes us back to the broad-based popular foundations of the Constitution in the Freedom Charter. He picks up on Oliver Tambo's original vision of a non-racial future for South Africa, rather than one based on institutionalised power-sharing between the races. He explores the tension between perfectability and corruptibility, hope and mistrust, which lies at the centre of all constitutions. Sachs discusses the enforcement of social and economic rights, and contemplates the building of the Constitutional Court in the heart of the Old Fort Prison as a mechanism for reconciling the past and the future. Subjective experience and objective analysis interact powerfully in a personalised narrative that reasserts the value of constitutionality not just for South Africans, but for people striving to advance human dignity, equality and freedom across the world today.
Contents
Acknowledgments; Introduction; I. Initiation; The Future of Multiculturalism in South Africa: The vision of the Constitution; The Original 'Pinch-me' Moment; II. Hope and caution in exile; The First and Last Word - Freedom; III. We have to mistrust ourselves; Preparing Ourselves for Power; Perfectibility and Corruptibility; IV. Inventing a constitution; South Africa's Unconstitutional Constitution: The transition from power to lawful power; V. With clean hands and without Secrets; Why I Supported Amnesty; Meeting the Man Who Organized a Bomb in My Car; Soft Vengeance; VI. Reconciling the past and the future; Archives, Truth and Reconciliation; The Place Next Door to Number Four; Free Spirits and Ravaged Souls; Towards the Liberation and Revitalisation of Customary Law; Values, Nation Formation and Social Compacting; VII. Living constitutional law and ubuntu; Constitutional Court Simulation, Case No.2: The constitutionality of the death penalty; A New African Jurisprudence: From abstract judicial rulings to; purposive transformative jurisprudence; Equality Jurisprudence; VIII. More than crumbs from the table: Enforcing social and economic rights; Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged; Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Bringing human solidarity back into the rights equation; IX. Struggle continues; Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability; From Refugee to Judge on Refugee Law; A Conversation About the Sacred and the Secular: Same-sex marriage; Getting the Last Laugh on Rhodes; X. Are the beautiful people born?; United in Diversity; Are the Beautiful People Born?; Cases Cited; Sources.
