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South Africa’s Bill of Rights: Reconciliation and a Just Society

du Plessis, Lourens M
June 4, 2015

Source: (2000) Race and Reconciliation in South Africa: A Multicultural Dialogue in Comparative Perspective. Ed. by William E. Van Vugt & G. Daan Cloete. Lanham: Lexington Books. 141-153.

Concentrating on (but not restricting myself to) the Bill of Rights in South Africa’s constitution, I want to show that this constitution, as a hallmark of reconciliation, seeks to take over an unjust past (by overtaking its grim consequences) and that it anticipates the advent of an optimally just society. In doing so, the constitution simultaneously narrates and authors the story of a just South Africa… This chapter deals with how the constitution seeks to lend “operational” credibility to the values whose meaningfulness it proclaims and whose achievement it promises. (excerpt)

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AbstractAfricaCourtsPost-Conflict ReconciliationRJ in SchoolsStatutes and Legislation
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