Keynote Speaker: Professor Mogobe B Ramose

Theme: Law, History and Power: The Constitution of South Africa and the (Im)possibility of Justice 

The year 2022 marks 26 years since the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. This year began with a series of politically high-profile public debates regarding the legitimacy of that very constitution and South Africa’s legal system. These debates have included Minister of Tourism, Lindiwe Sisulu, and Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, as well the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Raymond Zondo. The Premier of KwaZulu Natal and former president Thabo Mbeki, as well as scores of political and legal commentators, scholars, and citizens have also contributed to the debate. At the root of this debate are major ideological, jurisprudential, and historical questions of conquest in the unjust wars of colonisation, sovereign legitimacy, historical justice and reparations, transitional justice, truth and memory, decolonisation, and liberation.

 to the conference before 25 July 2022