SA's constitution needs a reviewing to close the gaps in the founding document that have created inequality and systems that don't work for ordinary people.
This was the view shared by several speakers, including activists and legal minds, at the opening of the three-day National Conference on the Constitution held at the Gallagher Convention Centre in Midrand.
The conference is held to reflect and engage in dialogue on the past 25 years of the constitution.
Adv Mojanku Gumbi, a former adviser to ex-president Thabo Mbeki and chancellor of the University of Venda, said South Africans cannot run away from the task of reviewing the constitution and see if it’s still relevant to the country's current situation.
"Let’s open up and see... because it can be improved. We’ve had it for 25 years and we know where it works and where it doesn’t.
"You can’t have the best constitution produce the kind of situation we have where we have fantastic wealth living side by side with abject poverty. It's unsustainable because if we don’t do anything about it we’re all going to regret it," she said.
On Human Rights Day, President Cyril Ramaphosa revealed that more than 18-million people are on social grants with scores of unemployed graduates queuing for the social relief of distress grant.
Gumbi said ordinary citizens do not relate the constitution to their lives. "There’s a certain disjuncture in their lives. People here go on about this lovely constitution and to them it’s not something they relate to their lives.
“When they stand up against not having water for six months or having no access to regular and reliable energy, they don’t link it to the constitution. For them the system is just not working.
“People are killed in Khayelitsha every other weekend, people feel the insecurity of the state, feel the neglect, feel hopelessness in their society but most of the time they don’t link it to constitution.
"They just think this country isn’t working for them but we have to correct that in the foundational documents and ask what kind of society do we want to build,” she said.
She added that the constitution also created a government accountable to parliament but in turn created a parliament beholden to a political leadership.
"It’s the constitution that created the electoral system we have. Where was parliament to call former president [Jacob] Zuma when he was doing the things he was doing. Right now, President Ramaphosa has got big challenges, where is the parliament that’s supposed to say to him, 'please come and tell us what the hell is going on?'"
Last year, ANC MPs voted against parliament’s Section 89 report that found Ramaphosa had questions to answer to regarding the stolen millions at his Phala Phala farm.
"It’s the constitution that created that system that doesn’t work for people," Gumbi said.
Barney Pityana, chair of the National Lotteries Commission, who was one of the panelists at the conference, said the state was weak, police are unable to uphold law while the lack of prosecutions against affluent individuals has given rise to corruption.
"The constitution was clear in its affirmation and the responsibilities it put on the state. It says in Chapter 2 of the Bill of Rights, the state must respect, protect and promote and fulfil the rights in the Bill of Rights.
“Sometimes one senses that governance in our country is weak, police are weak and unable to enforce law and order and the rule of law not able to bring about obedience within the system.
“We have a former president who has been in and out of court for 10 years and for me it’s not an affirmation of a rights-based state but affirmation of a state unable to enforce law. It tells the people of the country law is unable to be enforced,” Pityana said.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.