The series Women Representatives contains material from the Meeting of the Women Representatives of Participating Parties in the Multi-party Negotiation Forum on the 26 and 31 March 1993. These meetings framed the terms on which women were included in the Multi-Party Negotiation Process (MPNP). 

On the 18 March 1993 Constitutional Committee, during discussions on the structure and composition of the negotiation process, determined that all parties and organisations participating in the negotiation process should submit “a female representative” to attend a meeting. There was a noted lack of women participating in the MPNP; the meeting was to establish the views of women on the form of their participation in the negotiating process going forward. 

The resulting meeting of Women Representatives recognised that during the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) the representation of women in the negotiating process had been lacking.

During CODESA, the Gender Advisory Committee (GAC) was established. GAC was to be primarily composed of women and was intended to provide for greater gender equality and representation at CODESA. GAC was able to comment and recommend alterations to text from negotiation processes occurring in CODESA however GAC did not participate directly in the negotiations themselves. GAC’s recommendations and submissions received no feedback from the CODESA 2 Plenary. 

Recommendations made by the Meeting of Women Representatives included that all delegations to the Multi-Party Negotiation Forum and future plenaries should be required to include women rather than continue with an auxiliary structure such as GAC. This recommendation and others were accepted by the Negotiating Council to ensure that women would be active participants in the negotiation process going forward.

Theme Committees contain submissions made to theme committees, summaries thereof, the documents of core groups and reports from technical teams assigned to each theme committee. Audio recordings of the committee meetings can be found in their relevant sub-series.

Theme committees were responsible for the integration of ideas from political parties, civil society and the general public into the constitution-making process. Theme committees reported to the Constitutional Committee and Management Committee oversaw theme committee report writing. Their membership was drawn from the Constitutional Assembly.

Reports created by theme committees included details of non-contentious issues, contentious issues and suggested approaches but excluded debates, negotiations or resolutions which was the function of the Constitutional Committee and Constitutional Assembly.

Occasionally theme committee members were drawn on by the Constitutional Committee and Constitutional Sub-committee to draft and negotiate parts of the constitutional text as part of sub-committees and ad hoc committees.

Functions of the Theme Committees included:

• Receiving and collating views from the broader community on the Constitution
• Receiving submissions from the political parties
• Developing and processing these concepts and views
• Referring processed views for technical drafting
• Submitting the processed concepts in the form of reports to the Constitutional Committee for debate in the Constitutional Assembly.

There are six theme committees, each with their own dedicated topic. Theme Committee 6 was allowed by the Constitutional Assembly to create several sub-theme committees due to the significant differentiated and non-overlapping topics related to its theme.

The themes are:

• Theme Committee 1: Character of Democratic State
• Theme Committee 2: Structure of Government
• Theme Committee 3: Relationship Between Levels of Government
• Theme Committee 4: Fundamental Rights
• Theme Committee 5: Judiciary and Legal Systems
• Theme Committee 6: Specialised Structure of Government
• Sub-Theme Committee 6.1: Public Administration
• Sub-Theme Committee 6.2: Financial and Public Enterprise institutions
• Sub-Theme Committee 6.3: Transformation and Monitoring
• Sub-Theme Committee 6.4: Security apparatus

Each theme committee had a core group and a supporting technical committee. The core groups were responsible for co-ordinating and managing the work programmes of their respective theme committees. Technical committees were drawn from experts external to the Constitutional Assembly to advise theme committees.

The series Technical Committees is divided into eight units of description. The first seven correspond to the themes of the technical committees and are titled as such, they are:

• Technical Committee on Violence
• Technical Committee on Constitutional Issues
• Technical Committee on Fundamental Rights during the Transition
• Technical Committee on Independent Election Commission
• Technical Committee on Independent Media Commission and the Independent Telecommunications Authority
• Technical Committee on Repeal and Free Political Activity
• Technical Committee on Transitional Executive Council
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  The eighth unit of description Technical Committees: General contains documents related to the management of technical committees.

The Negotiating Council established the seven technical committees. Technical committees were instruments of the Negotiating Council for the production of systematic documentation to facilitate discussions and negotiations in the Negotiating Council. They were not negotiating bodies. They largely functioned to advise and formulate specific texts, which were then submitted to the Negotiating Council for review.

Depending on the outcome of the review, formulations were either passed on to the Negotiating Forum or returned to the technical committees for refinement. The Planning Committee was tasked with managing and coordinating the work of the technical committees.

Synnøve Skjelten used Edward Shalala’s papers additionally to other primary and secondary resources for her Masters thesis Democracy and communication: an analysis and assessment of the public participation programme of the Constitutional Assembly, and her book A People's Constitution: Public Participation in the South African Constitution-making Process. 

This series contains Skjelten’s Masters thesis as presented to the Department of Political Studies, University of Cape Town and primary material significant to her research for A People's Constitution.

Sub-committees contain documents and audio recordings of the majority of sub-committees and ad hoc committees. Sub-committees were created by the Constitutional Committee Sub-committee or the Constitutional Committee.

Sub-committees typically dealt with drafting and negotiation of particular issues identified as lacking consensus by theme committees. Each sub-committee consisted of six members drawn from the relevant theme committee and supplemented with technical advisers and Constitutional Assembly members if needed.

Other Sub-committees and ad hoc committees were created as part of multilateral negotiation processes, most notably the Arniston Multilateral.

Sub-committee 1 and Sub-committee 2 were created by the Constitutional Committee to address issues raised by the Constitutional Court decision to not certify the constitution on 6 September 1996. Audio recordings and meeting minutes are available in sub-series Sub-committee 1 and Sub-committee 2.

Steering Committee contains audio recordings of Steering Committee meetings. This committee was created by and reported to the Constitutional Assembly. It was primarily concerned with budgeting, planning and the creation of operational rules between May and August 1994.

The Post-CODESA 2 phase was short-lived. Despite the establishment of several Sub-committees and Task Groups, and the allocation of tasks, all CODESA meetings were suspended at the end of June 1992. This decision was made after a general request for the suspension of meetings, due to the unstable political situation in the country at that stage.

Within this series can be found the final versions of bills drafted by all bodies of the Multi-Party Negotiating Process (MPNP) as well as resolutions and adoptions of those bills. 

The Multi-Party Negotiation Process Plenary was a widely representative body of South African leaders and political parties who confirmed and amended agreements reached by all other negotiating bodies of the MPNP. It was the highest body of the MPNP. The Multi-Party Negotiating Process had one Plenary on 17 November 1993.

The series Planning Conference contains the materials produced for the meeting of the Multi-party Planning Conference on 5 and 6 March 1993. While draft resolutions of the Planning Conference can be found here, the final resolutions are in the series Negotiating Council. 

This short lived conference focused on planning for a meeting of the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum to be held at the World Trade Centre 1 and 2 April 1993. The conference resolved general terms for consensus, negotiating procedure and that “CODESA” was no longer to be the name of the negotiation process. Twenty six parties and organisations were represented. After the Planning Conference its members dissolved into the then yet to be named Multi-Party Negotiating Process. 

Further planning for the Negotiating Forum meeting continued during March under the direction of the Facilitating Committee and the Sub-committee of the Facilitating Committee. These committees were renamed the Negotiating Council and the Planning Committee.

The series Planning Committee contains the working documents of the Planning Committee and the Sub-committee of the Facilitating Committee (as it was briefly known). In addition to its own minutes and delegation packs; reports and proposals from other bodies of the Multi-Party Negotiating Process (MPNP) and the Planning Committee Sub-committee can be found here. 

The Planning Committee was made up of ten members of the Negotiating Council and worked under the directives and supervision of it. The Planning Committee formed the Planning Committee Sub-committee to assist in logistic and co-ordinating processes of the MPNP. The Planning Committee submitted recommendations on procedural and substantive issues for negotiation to the Negotiating Council but was not itself mandated to take any final decisions. 

The Planning Committee formulated the terms of reference for the negotiating bodies such as the Negotiating Council, Negotiating Forum and commissions. It also proposed duties for the technical committees, received reports from technical committees, and had the mandate to request further investigation into areas that it deemed required it.