Constitutional Triumphs, Constitutional Disappointments A Critical Assessment of the 1996 South African Constitution's Local and International Influence

The 1996 South African Constitution was promulgated on 18th December 1996 and came into effect on 4th February 1997. Its aspirational provisions promised to transform South Africa's economy and society along non-racial and egalitarian lines. Following the twentieth anniversary of its enactment, this book, co-edited by Rosalind Dixon and Theunis Roux, examines the triumphs and disappointments of the Constitution. It explains the arguments in favor of the Constitution being replaced with a more authentically African document, untainted by the necessity to compromise with ruling interests predominant at the end of apartheid. Others believe it remains a landmark attempt to create a society based on social, economic, and political rights for all citizens, and that its true implementation has yet to be achieved. This volume considers whether the problems South Africa now faces are of constitutional design or implementation, and analyses the Constitution's external influence on constitutionalism in other parts of the world.

1. Introduction Rosalind Dixon and Theunis Roux; 2. Mission in progress: towards an assessment of South Africa's Constitution at 20 Catherine O'Regan; 3. The performance of socio-economic rights in the South African Constitution David Bilchitz; 4. Proceduralism's promise: the Constitutional Court, social and economic rights and democracy Steven Friedman; 5. Corruption, the rule of law and the role of independent institutions Heinz Klug; 6. Violence against women in South Africa: constitutional responses and opportunities Beth Goldblatt; 7. Toward reparative transformation: revisiting the impact of violence against women in a post-TRC South Africa Andrea Durbach; 8. The constitutional goal of transforming education: the South African Constitutional Court in comparative perspective Julie C. Suk; 9. Race, inclusiveness and transformation of legal education in South Africa Penelope Andrews; 10. The contribution of the South African Constitution to Kenya's Constitution Jill Cottrell Ghai and Yash Ghai; 11. Multi-stage constitution-making: from South Africa to Chile? Joel Colón-Ríos; 12. A cure for coups: the South African influence on Fijian constitutionalism Coel Kirkby; 13. Policing democracy: the influence of South Africa's post-apartheid security arrangements on police oversight under Kenya's 2010 Constitution Richard Stacey; 14. The diffusion of South African-style institutions? A study in comparative constitutionalism Charles Manga Fombad; 15. Constitutionalism, legitimacy, and public order: a South African case study Aziz Z. Huq; 16. South African social rights jurisprudence and the global canon: a revisionist view David Landau.

Exploring whether the aspirations of the 1996 South African Constitution have been realized, and what other countries are learning from the South African experience, this book will appeal to anyone interested in South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution, either on its own terms or from a comparative perspective.

Rosalind Dixon is Professor of Law at University of New South Wales, Sydney, and co-president of the International Society of Public Law. Dixon's research focuses on a broad range of comparative constitutional law topics, including questions of constitutional design, amendment, socio-economic rights, law and gender, and constitutional courts and judicial review. Dixon was born in South Africa, and has written extensively about the South African Constitution.
Theunis Roux is Professor of Law at University of New South Wales, Sydney. Before moving to Australia in 2009, he was the founding director of the South African Institute of Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law and Secretary General of the International Association of Constitutional Law. His book on the first South African Constitutional Court, The Politics of Principle (Cambridge), was published in 2013. His current research interest is comparative historical analysis of the evolution of judicial review regimes – clusters of legitimating ideas about the law/politics relationship in societies that have adopted a system of judicial review.