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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the South African judiciary, and constitutionalism |
| Author: | Klaaren, Jonathan |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | African Studies |
| Volume: | 57 |
| Issue: | 2 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 197-208 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | democracy offences against human rights commissions of inquiry Law, Human Rights and Violence Politics and Government Ethnic and Race Relations |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189808707895 |
| Abstract: | This article defines constitutionalism as a cultural construction resulting from popular and elite participation in institutions of constitution-making, and explores the interaction between the courts and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). These relationships give some indications of the emerging shape of constitutionalism in South Africa. While the TRC's legislative basis has been upheld by the Constitutional Court, the Commission's operations have been subject to close judicial scrutiny by the lower courts. While the TRC attempted to cast its project of accounting for apartheid over the judiciary and other components of the legal sector, the judiciary refused to appear before the TRC in person, submitting written representations. Despite the influence of the TRC process upon South African constitutionalism, the institutional role of the judiciary remains to be defined and the place of social and economic rights is by no means prominent. Yet the kind of culture that constitutionalism wants has been given a significant boost by the operation of the TRC. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |
