Abstract/Summary

At the heart of the South African Constitutional order lies an enterprise that has been characterised as 'transformative constitutionalism'. This entails that the Constitution in South Africa was not designed simply to entrench the status quo: rather, it was enacted for the purpose of fundamentally transforming society. However, the notion of transformation or change alone tells us very little: in order to comprehend what the Constitution is designed to achieve, it is necessary to have an understanding of the features of the past that must be discarded and to have a vision of the type of future towards which South African society should be heading. This point is enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution which outlines its aim as being 'to heal the divisions of the past and to establish a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights'. The Constitution also places three central values at the core of the society it is designed to create: human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms.