Socio-economic rights under a transformative Constitution The role of the academic community and NGOs

Abstract

Following Karl Klare’s seminal article in the 1998 SA Journal on Human Rights, South Africa’s Constitution has been widely described by the courts and in academic literature as a “transformative Constitution”. While finding deep resonances in the South African community, the concept has also remained tantalisingly elusive. At one level, it implies an undoing of the multifaceted injustices inflicted by four centuries of colonial and apartheid rule in the political, social, economic and cultural spheres. At another level, it also implies the construction of a new and better society for the future – one which is founded, as the preamble of the South African Constitution of 1996 states, “on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights”.