A Theory of African Constitutionalism asks and seeks to answer why we need a new theoretical framework for African constitutionalism and how this could offer us better theoretical and practical tools with which to understand, improve, and assess African constitutionalism on its own terms. By locating constitutional studies in Africa within the experiences, interactions, and contestations of power and governance beginning in precolonial times, the book presents the development and transformation of African constitutional systems across time and place, along with the attendant constitutional designs and practices ranging from the nature and operation of the African state to its vertical and horizontal government structures, to its constitutional rights regime. This title offers both a theoretically and comparatively rich, historically and contextually informed, and temporally and spatially extensive account of the nature, travails, and incremental successes of African constitutionalism with detailed case studies from Nigeria, Ethiopia, and South Africa. A Theory of African Constitutionalism provides scholars, policymakers, governments, and constitution builders in Africa and beyond with new insights for reimagining the purpose, substance, and scope of constitutions and constitutionalism.

The issues addressed in this rewarding book provide new insight into the way we conceive, reflect and study the problems of political transformation and constitution-making in Africa. The study provides a refreshingly in-depth analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of constitutional provisions for managing the challenges of race, religion, ethnicity, citizenship, civil liberties and civil-military relations in Africa's transitional democracies. Tracing emerging trends in constitution-making, it blends the theory of constitutional democracy with case studies, and defines the imperative of social justice.

A revisionary account of the South African Constitutional Court, its working method and the neglected political underpinnings of its success.

Over the last fifteen years, the South African postapartheid Transitional Amnesty Process – implemented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) – has been extensively analyzed by scholars and commentators from around the world and from almost every discipline of human sciences. Lawyers, historians, anthropologists and sociologists as well as political scientists have tried to understand, describe and comment on the ‘shocking’ South African political decision to give amnesty to all who fully disclosed their politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era. Investigating the postapartheid transition in South Africa from a multidisciplinary perspective involving constitutional law, criminal law, history and political science, this book explores the overlapping of the postapartheid constitution-making process and the Amnesty Process for political violence under apartheid and shows that both processes represent important innovations in terms of constitutional law and transitional justice systems. Both processes contain mechanisms that encourage the constitution of the unity of the political body while ensuring future solidity and stability. From this perspective, the book deals with the importance of several concepts such as truth about the past, publicly shared memory, unity of the political body and public confession.

Constitutionalism is steadily becoming the prevalent form of governance in Africa. But how does constitutionalism deal with the lingering effects of colonialism? And how does constitutional law deal with Islamic principles in the region? African Constitutionalism and the Role of Islam seeks to answer these questions. Constitutional governance has not been, nor will be, easily achieved, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na'im argues. But setbacks and difficulties are to be expected in the process of adaptation and indigenization of an essentially alien concept—that of of nation-state—and its role in large-scale political and social organization. An-Na'im discusses the problems of implementing constitutionalized forms of government specific to Africa, from definitional to conceptual and practical issues. The role of Islam in these endeavors is open to challenge and reformulation, and should not be taken for granted or assumed to be necessarily negative or positive, An-Na'im asserts, and he emphasizes the role of the agency of Muslims in the process of adapting constitutionalism to the values and practices of their own societies. By examining the incremental successes that some African nations have already achieved and An-Na'im reveals the contingent role that Islam has to play in this process. Ultimately, these issues will determine the long-term sustainability of constitutionalism in Africa.

The central role that good, effective and capable governance plays in the economic and social development of a country is now widely recognised. Using the Commonwealth countries of eastern and southern Africa, this book analyses some of the key constitutional issues in the process of developing, strengthening and consolidating the capacity of states to ensure the good governance of their peoples. Utilising comparative material, the book seeks to draw lessons, both positive and negative, about the problems of constitutionalism in the region and, in doing so, critically addresses the legal issues involved in seeking to make constitutions 'work' in practice.

Two decades since the enactment of South Africa’s present constitution, the durability and endurance of ‘past’ inequalities and injustices illustrate that the ‘new South Africa’ – lauded as a miracle nation with the best constitution in the world – can no longer be regarded as an unqualified success. The legal and constitutional foundations of post-1994 South Africa are in a process of renegotiation that invites new and alternative perspectives and approaches. This comprehensive volume explores this process of renegotiation by engaging political and intellectual contestations circulating in South African academic and public discourse relating to continuities and discontinuities between the colonial-apartheid past and the post-1994 constitutional present. The authors analyse the moral, intellectual and political unravelling of post-1994 South African constitutionalism (as legal text and political culture) and enquire whether it has been able to respond adequately to the fundamental contradictions generated by colonisation and apartheid. They also consider how centring the historical problem of European domination and conquest in Africa – and South Africa in particular – might provide an alternative frame or lens to theorise and understand contemporary South African realities. This book marks out a complex field of contestation – involving competing histories, locations, visions and perspectives – that raises multifaceted questions regarding law, history and politics. It is the outcome of a South African Journal of Human Rights colloquium and was originally published as a special issue of the journal.