Welcome to the archives of We, the People SA. Here we gather the historical substance of the constitution-making process in a digital form.

Our archive is primarily a digital one, most of the original physical materials are housed with the partners and friends of We, the People SA. Our objective is to bring the story of the making of The Constitution to one place for you to access as freely as possible.

You can read the early drafts of the principles hammered out at CODESA. See how they provided the framework to take our country to its first democratic elections, and to create a parliament to draft the final constitution. Listen to the audio recordings of the lively debates, as the elected parliament functioned as a Constitutional Assembly  to write the new constitution.

You may also want to engage the personal documents of people who were actively engaged in the transition. You can look at material from the collection of former Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs, and documents from the Shalala and Skjelten Collection that show how the public was engaged in the process of making the final constitution.

Most of our material is loaded at low resolution and audio has been compressed to ensure fast downloads and lower data cost. Higher quality copies are available on special request. Please read our general Terms and Conditions and be aware that each item in each collection may have special conditions and permission that apply to it and its use. Please contact us before using material in a publication or for commercial purposes.

We are planning to add more content soon! Please check our Collections to see what is available.

Credits

This project would not have been possible without the generous support of the RAITH Foundation. 

Several pivotal collections have been digitised through our partnership with the National Archives and Record Services of South Africa (NARSSA), a directorate of the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture of South Africa.