The Constitutional Assembly was tasked with writing a new constitution for a non-racial South Africa within two years of its first sitting. It was the final deciding body of the contents of the new constitutional text.

This series includes audio recordings of Constitutional Assembly meetings, submission, reports, draft constitutional texts, bills and other materials from the structures of the Constitutional Assembly. Many if these materials were prepared by the Constitutional Committee.

The Constitutional Assembly created several structures to assist in fulfilling its mandate, of which the Constitutional Committee was primary. The Constitutional Committee functioned as the primary negotiating and driving body of the Constitutional Assembly. Other structures were outlined and required by the Interim Constitution (Act 200 of 1993: Constitution of the Republic of South Africa).

The Constitutional Assembly determined that the constitution-making process would be an integrated and transparent one. Integration required that the ideas of political parties in the Constitutional Assembly, civil society and the broader public be considered.

Integration was a significant task of the theme committees in receiving and processing public submissions. Transparency was facilitated by requiring all meetings of the Constitutional Assembly and its structures to be open to the public and the media.

Membership for the Constitutional Committee and theme committees were drawn directly from the Constitutional Assembly.

The Management Committee was responsible for matters of process. It implemented tasks of the Constitutional Committee, oversaw the Administration unit, and monitored the media and public participation. This series contains the Management Committees’ working documents, and audio recordings of their meetings.

Management Committee tasks included:

• preparing agendas for Constitutional Committee meeting
• preparing reports to be considered by the Constitutional Committee
• co-ordinating the activities of the theme committees
• co-ordinating the activities of all structures of Constitutional Assembly
• attending, between meetings of the Constitutional Committee, to the day-to-day management and overseeing of developments in the structures.

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.

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.

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.

This series contains the working documents of the Negotiating Council and the Facilitating Committee (as it was briefly known). It includes the minutes, delegation packs, reports and resolutions of the Negotiating Council. Additional proposals and submissions from other bodies of the Multi-Party Negotiation Process (MPNP) and resolutions from the Planning Conference can be found here.

The Negotiating Council was the core negotiating body of the MPNP and established the Transitional Executive Council (TEC) to serve as its successor. It was ultimately responsible for the negotiating, drafting, finalising and implementation of the Interim Constitution as endorsed by the MPNP Plenary. The Council reported to the Multi-Party Negotiating Forum.

Each participating party was represented in the Negotiating Council by two delegates, one of which was required to be a woman, plus two advisers. The Negotiating Council’s primary function was the day to day negotiations of the MPNP and processing reports from all other committees and sub-committees for review by the Negotiating Forum ahead of submission to the MPNP Plenary for approval.

The Negotiating Council established seven technical committees, commissions, task groups and various ad hoc and sub-committees to assist in its work. While these bodies reported to the Negotiating Council, the Planning Committee was responsible for their co-ordination and terms of reference.