'Our constitution does not work'

[PeterCH]

'Our constitution does not work'

Our constitution is like our government, no suprises then.

 

[oronte]

I did say what needed to be done to 'fix' it. Give power to parliament.

I know you didn't want to get into an arguement about the death penalty but too late. My arguements about the death penalty are not about economics - those are the arguements of the contitutional court.

Just another thought - any changes to the constitution must, by definition, be unconstitutional.

I mentioned my 'fix' for the constitution above - and you can add the parts about fair discrimination to that list. The manner in which people are elected needs to change - that has nothing to do with the constitution. The constitution needs to protect my rights so if you, as a member of parliament, think that you are going to change parties without going through a by-election, guess again.

Debbie muttered something about the situation being worse if we had absolute consituency based voting. Maybe more ANC candidates would get in but I would hope that they would be free-thinking. Right now every one of them votes like a drone and that has put the power in the hands of the few on the NEC. And as I have already pointed out, that body is most certainly not representative of the people of the country.

But your turn - tell me what is good about our constitution.

Oh I don't know, let me see - the bit about human dignity is nice, non-sexism, non-racism, also good bits. Promoting and respecting all languages and religions, that's good. That whole Bill of Rights section in fact, is excellent (or do you think we should just throw that out too). The concept of co-operative government and a multi-party system is great (but I suppose you could argue against that). Decentralising power by dividing the system nationally, provincially, and local also quite a good idea.
Giving all citizens the right to vote is nice. Term limits are useful. The existence of parliament certainly a bonus (it's composition ultimately in the hands of voters). It's hardly unconstitutional to amend the constitution (please cite the specific place in the text which says that), because section 74 seems to indicate otherwise, but hey I'm not a lawyer. The very fact that it was built with flexibility in mind is certainly a bonus.
Asking parliament and particularly the president to uphold the constitution upon taking office is another nice feature (if they don't do so then we are the ones who have to do something about it, it is a document after all and means nothing if we don't enforce it).
Section 92 suggests that cabinet is accountable to parliament, it's not the constitution's fault if we voted one single party to the majority thus nullifying this impact of this section.
Only a majority is needed to declare a vote of no confidence in the president and cabinet, quite a nifty little feature. The concept of the public protector a good one, but perhaps we need to close the loopholes that have allowed for abuse (if that was indeed the case). Establishing the Gender commission, SAHRC, Auditor General - all good.
And giving the judiciary independence from parliament also quite good (although perhaps we need to deal with how judges are elected).

I absolutely agree that the ANC members are drones in parliament and so we must vote for parties that respect their own members.

Have you actually read the constitution? Anyone? Before you comment and call the constitution 'worthless' please read it and take a moment to reflect on the many, many things that it does to ensure our society functions and that everyone in the country has rights which were previously only extended to a few. Like Spiderman's uncle says, 'with great power comes great responsibility' and just as we hold our leaders up to a higher standard, so to must we do the same for ourselves. You don't get the rights without the responsibilities. As I said the constitution truly is worthless if we don't believe in it and don't enforce it ourselves.

 

[TheHiveMind]

As I said the constitution truly is worthless if we don't believe in it and don't enforce it ourselves.

How can you enforce it, when the majority would rather look the other way? Perhaps if the constitution made impossible promises about giving poor people free stuff for nothing, it could compete with politicians.

 

[Divestar]

... it means something to the rest of us.

Not meant as a personal attack, but I am not with you on this.

We as voters choose who we want to lead us, then in a "democracy" the ruling party decides that the voters don't mean anything and remove whomever we voted for and put the choice of some 2000 members before the country's choice.

How can a constitution that is so well formed allow this?

That's my 2c worth!

 

[Albereth]

As I said the constitution truly is worthless if we don't believe in it and don't enforce it ourselves.

Well, seeing as you can't enforce it yourself you agree that it is worthless.

Yes, it has a heap of noble sentiments but they mean nothing if the constitution cannot be protected - and we have already seen that parliament, as custodians of the constitution, have been usurped.

As I said earlier, what if we had no constitution. Would you be any better off or any worse off? Assuming nobody cared about the religion you followed, would it make a difference in your prayers? Thing is, if the NEC decide that religion is the opiate of the masses they can have the constitution changed to outlaw that. It really doesn't matter if 99% of the people of the country support you, the drones are going to vote the way of the NEC, not the way of their conscience or for the will of the people.

 

[JungleBoy]

Not meant as a personal attack, but I am not with you on this.

We as voters choose who we want to lead us, then in a "democracy" the ruling party decides that the voters don't mean anything and remove whomever we voted for and put the choice of some 2000 members before the country's choice.

How can a constitution that is so well formed allow this?

That's my 2c worth!

As I was corrected earlier Mbeki could have resisted this "recall" with the backing of the constitution, but he decided not to.

 

[kingmonty]

As I was corrected earlier Mbeki could have resisted this "recall" with the backing of the constitution, but he decided not to.

Please, like he had a choice. If he didn't resign then he will probably have lost all his ANC privileges. Not to mention, if he resisted and the ANC successfully had him removed through parliamentary structures, he would have lost all his post-presidential privileges as well (this includes his retirement home, pension, etc etc)