Racing
to The deadline

The drafters agreed to produce the first working draft of the Constitution according to a strict timetable set out in the work plan, referred to by the administrators as ‘the heart of the process’. According to this plan, the first draft of the Constitution would be completed by August 1995. The final draft had to be handed over to Parliament on the 8th of May 1996. Despite the many areas of agreement, hurdles were starting to emerge. The time frame proved to be a major issue.

There’s a great deal of cheerfulness around, but the trouble is that we’re operating against a deadline and I don’t think there’s a hope in Hades of getting there if we carry on with the process as it is. We have piles of reports, but there hasn’t been a single agreement that has been finalised.

Sheila Camerer

then NP member of the Constitutional Assembly

A serious setback occurred in March 1995 when the IFP members walked out of Parliament. Their leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, was angered and insulted by what he pronounced as the ‘government’s failure to honour their agreement around international mediation’. The IFP still hoped to gain greater provincial autonomy through a mediation process. Buthelezi accused the ANC of running the country through majoritarianism rather than consensus and said that the IFP would not take part in the Constitutional Assembly. He also declared that his party would not accept the Constitution. Two days before their walkout, Cyril Ramaphosa had tried the role of the pacifier:

The constitution that we draft must include all the parties and especially the IFP…We hope that good sense finally prevails with the leadership of the IFP and that they realise the national importance of their participation in the structure of government and also the Constitutional Assembly.

CYRIL RAMAPHOSA

On the ifp's participation in the structuring of government

Zapiro cartoon, 12 April 1995. Zapiro

The Countdown Begins

13 MONTHS AWAY

May 1995

Many people and organisations were making their voices heard on the streets of South Africa at this time, marching to Parliament to present their petitions to the Constitutional Assembly.

13

13 MONTHS AWAY

10 months away

August 1995

While marches and protests took place outside, the Theme Committees continued to thrash out several contentious issues behind closed doors.

10

10 months away

9 months away

September 1995

The drafters pressed on with their task. They were assisted by the technical refinement team headed by Canadian lawyer Phil Knight – the only non-South African to take part in the negotiations - and a team of South African lawyers.

9

9 months away

8 months away

October 1995

Finally the first milestone was reached. The CA was presented with a completed Refined Working Draft of the Constitution.

8

8 months away

7 months away

November 1995

Despite political and technical objections to the Working Draft, it was approved by the CA.

7

7 months away

5 months away

December 1995 and January 1996

Politicians and technical advisers travelled to Britain and Germany to gain insights into different constitutional models.

5

5 months away

3 months away

February 1996

By the beginning of February, as work resumed, the full magnitude of the task that lay ahead became all too clear.

3

3 months away

2 months away

14 March 1996

The Management Committee evaluated progress after considering the fourth edition of the Working Draft. Roelf Meyer observed that “the more difficult issues had been fairly easily resolved while some of the issues that were originally thought to be of lesser importance became the final stumbling blocks”.

2

2 months away

38 days away

1–3 April

Members of political parties, together with their advisers, technical advisers to the Assembly and the Independent Panel of Constitutional Experts, decamped from parliament to Arniston, a small, secluded seaside village in the Western Cape.

38

38 days away

23 days away

15 April 1996

The Constitutional Committee received a copy of the new draft. The committee now had four days to resolve the deadlocked issues and produce a bill to go before the Constitutional Assembly.

23

23 days away

21 days away

17 April 1996

Ramaphosa accepted a petition from the thousands of chemical workers who had marched to the Constitutional Assembly to present their rejection of the lock-out clause. A similar march was held the next day by members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU).

21

21 days away

20/19 days away

18 April 1996

A marathon all-night session of the Constitutional Committee was held on Thursday night, 18 April 1996, starting at eight in the evening and ending at 5.47 on a chilly Friday morning. This was later remembered as one of the most vital and dramatic days of the entire process.

20

20/19 days away

16 days away

22 April 1996

Incredibly, the technical refinement team produced the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Bill, incorporating all the agreements made on Friday 19 April, in time to place it before the Constitutional Assembly on 22 April.

16

16 days away

14 days away

24 April 1996

After two days of debate, the CA approved the first reading of the bill, leaving the Constitutional Committee with 298 pages of amendments to incorporate.

14

14 days away

12 days away

26 April 1996

By now, newspapers and radio stations were issuing daily reports of unfolding events in the CA. The nation was gripped. In addition, the NP was still pushing for the continuation of some form of the Government of National Unity.

12

12 days away

10 days away

28 April 1996

After ten hours of discussion between the NP and the ANC, the two main parties were joined by delegations from both COSATU and business to discuss the property and lock-out clauses. Ramaphosa came away from the meeting stating that he was ‘1 000 per cent sure of adopting the Constitution on May 8’.

10

10 days away

9 days away

29 April 1996

A crisis loomed as COSATU refused to abandon its plan for a national strike, scheduled to take place the following day. Further to-ing and fro-ing on the education and property clauses continued. The possibility that the Constitution might not be finished was becoming very real.

9

9 days away

8 days away

30 April 1996

A crisis loomed as COSATU refused to abandon its plan for a national strike. On Tuesday, 30 April COSATU staged its general strike.

8

8 days away

7 days away

1 May 1996

The Constitutional Committee began debating outstanding issues at two in the afternoon and ended at five o’clock the next morning, without reaching success. At this point there were real concerns that the Constitution would not be adopted on 8 May.

7

7 days away

5 days away

3 May 1996

Hopes were pinned on Ramaphosa and Meyer working through the education issue, but the stakes for both were too high. Negotiations continued throughout the day and into the night. Working similarly grueling hours, the technical refinement team completed a second draft of the amended bill less than an hour before the Constitutional Committee was due to meet.

5

5 days away

4 days away

4 May 1996

Negotiators were now confident that the technical refinement team could draft amendments for consideration by the political parties later in the day. Several ANC proposals had been tabled regarding the Bill of Rights, the property clause and the lock-out clause.

4

4 days away

3 days away

5 May 1996

The press was now urging the negotiators to complete the job they had started. City Press said: “This week support, prayers and sheer old-fashioned staying power were the request we threw at the feet of men and women writing our country’s new constitution."

3

3 days away

2 days away

6 May 1996

The meetings on 6 May failed to produce any results. The atmosphere in the Constitutional Assembly was becoming acrimonious. There was no longer evidence of the consensus-seeking mode that had previously characterised much of the process. The parties were playing hardball.

2

2 days away

1 day away

7 May 1996

Cyril Ramaphosa, then Chair of the Constitutional Assembly, urged the tired drafters to keep going:
"I know it's late but just twenty minutes more, just twenty minutes - for our Constitution which is for the next twenty years, no, fifty years, 100 years, 200 years."

1

1 day away

deadline day

8 May 1996

The morning of Wednesday, 8 May was grey and wintry in Cape Town. Outside the Parliament building, television crews jostled for the best positions and buses of school children arrived from all over the city to bear witness to the moment.

deadline day

A Crack Emerges

9 May 1996

The day after the Constitution was accepted, the National Party walked out of the Government of National Unity. It stated that it preferred to develop its future as an opposition party. President Nelson Mandela tried to persuade the NP to return to the fold but FW de Klerk remained determined to become the opposition.

A Crack Emerges

The graphics used in this component are drawn from the following sources:

Constitutional Assembly Publication, You and the Constitution, 1995

Constitutional Assembly Publication, Constitutional Talk, Volume 9, 1995

The quotes used in this component are drawn from the following sources:

Constitutional Assembly Annual Report, May 1994 – May 1995

Christina Murray, A Constitutional Beginning: Making South Africa’s Final Constitution, 23 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 809 (2001). Available at: http://lawrepository.ualr.edu/lawreview/vol23/iss3

Mike Nicol, The Making of the Constitution

Parliament of the Republic of South Africa (2018) Theme Committee Book Series 1-6

https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/omalley/index.php/site/q/03lv02167/04lv02184/05lv02185/06lv02188.htm