Court authorizes Mandela to sign new constitution

Court authorizes Mandela to sign new constitution

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuter): South Africa's highest
court yesterday authorized President Nelson Mandela to sign into
law a post-apartheid constitution that enforces racial and social
equality.

Mandela will sign the document next Tuesday, which is
International Human Rights Day, at a ceremony in Sharpeville
where white police massacred 69 black pro-democracy demonstrators
in 1960, Constitutional Affairs Minister Mohammed Valli Moosa
told Reuters.

"We are more than elated, both as the ANC (African National
Congress) and as government, that this chapter in our history is
now behind us," he said of the two-year constitution-writing
process formally ended by the court's ratification of the text.

This "is a document that will no doubt serve as a beacon in
constitutionalism not only here, but internationally."

The 11-member Constitutional Court overruled objections by two
opposition parties to a revised draft constitution adopted by the
National Assembly and Senate sitting together as a Constitutional
Assembly in October.

"We certify that all the provisions of the amended
constitutional text...comply with the constitutional principles
contained in...the (interim) constitution of the Republic of
South Africa," Court President Arthur Chaskalson said.

Zulu Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, leader of the opposition
Inkatha Freedom Party, remains opposed to the constitution,
saying it fails to give provinces the extensive federal powers he
had demanded since democracy talks began in 1990.

Inkatha and the liberal Democratic Party, citing mainly
technical flaws in the text, were the only groups who opposed
ratification of the final document.

Roelf Meyer, chief negotiator for the white-led National Party
that relinquished power to Mandela in 1994, said he was delighted
by the ruling.

"It is a document that all South Africans can be proud of," he
said. "Although it might not be perfect in every respect, I guess
no constitution anywhere in the world is perfect."

The constitution, which Mandela has called the birth
certificate of a democratic South Africa, will entrench a bill of
rights enforcing race, gender and social equality in a country
that has been characterized by white privilege.

Amongst its more controversial provisions are a prohibition on
capital punishment, guaranteed trade union rights and a property
clause that could empower the government to redress the skewed
pattern of land ownership created by apartheid.

Unless it is amended by at least two-thirds of the nation's
legislators, the constitution would make it impossible for any
future government to suspend human rights or to favor one section
of the population as successive white governments did.