Constitution of South Africa
supreme and fundamental law of South Africa
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the human rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Government. The current constitution, the country's fifth, was drawn up by the Parliament elected in the 1994 general election. It was promulgated by President Nelson Mandela on 18 December 1996 and came into effect on 4 February 1997, replacing the Interim Constitution of 1993. The first constitution was enacted by the South Africa Act 1909, the longest-lasting to date.
Since 1997, the Constitution has been amended by eighteen amendments. The Constitution is formally entitled the "Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996." It was previously also numbered as if it were an Act of Parliament – Act No. 108 of 1996 – but, since the passage of the Citation of Constitutional Laws Act, neither it nor the acts amending it are allocated act numbers.
History
Previous Constitutions of South Africa
The South Africa Act 1909, an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, unified four British colonies – Cape Colony, Transvaal Colony, Orange River Colony and Natal Colony – into the Union of South Africa, a self-governing dominion.
The Republic of South Africa Constitution Act, 1961 replaced the Queen with a State President, but otherwise left the system of government largely unchanged.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Constitution of South Africa” as supreme and fundamental law of South Africa. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as supreme and fundamental law of South Africa. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60567. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1996, 1997 and 1993.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Constitution of South Africa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Constitution of South Africa primary sources, Constitution of South Africa archive and Constitution research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Constitution of South Africa”?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Constitution of South Africa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.