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 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.

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 CODESA 1 contains Preparatory Meetings in addition to the plenary documents. 

During the Preparatory Meeting (29 to 30 November 1991), three task groups were created to facilitate planning and creating an agenda and aims under the direction of the Steering Committee. 

During the Plenary (20 and 21 December 1991), five working groups were established, each with their own terms of reference and specific tasks related to the agenda of CODESA. Material created by the working groups can be found in the series CODESA 2.

This series contains a variety of materials and media related to a multi-phase investigation conducted by the Commission of the Demarcation of State, Provinces and Regions. It includes the working documents and reports of the Commissions, the Technical Support Team, Task Force, Coordinating Committee and other sub-structures. Additionally the Commission’s research materials, public submissions and recordings of public hearings are also available.

On 28 May 1993 the Negotiating Council on the recommendation of the Planning Committee, formed the Commission of the Demarcation of State, Provinces and Regions (SPRs). The Negotiating Council, having realised that the regional boundaries would be relevant to the electoral process and the resulting structures of the Constitution, required the Commission to make recommendations on the demarcation of SPRs in South Africa.

The question of structures, powers and function of SPRs was not included in the Commission’s functions and was assigned to the Technical Committee on Constitutional Issues.

The Commission embarked on an investigation which included multiple rounds of public submissions and hearings. Due to the scale of the undertaking, the Commission formed several task groups and ad hoc committees. The Planning Committee’s "extended Coordinating Committee on the Commission of the Demarcation of State, Provinces and Regions" provided logistic support to the Commission and its sub-structures while reporting on the Commissions' investigations to the Planning Committee. 

The Commission was instructed to take into account the following criteria in its assessments:

• Historical boundaries, including provincial magisterial and district boundaries and infrastructure.
• Administrative considerations including the availability or non-availability of infrastructure and nodal points of service.
• The need or otherwise to rationalise existing structures, including TBVC (Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei) states, self-governing and regional governments.
• The necessity of limiting financial and other costs as much as is reasonably possible.
• The need to minimise inconvenience to the people.
• The need to minimise the dislocation of services.
• Demographic considerations.
• Economic viability.
• Development potential.
• Cultural and language realities.
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  The Commission, in a report to the Negotiating Council, identified eight “sensitive areas” which received further investigation by the Task Force composed of members from the Commission and Technical Support Team.

The “sensitive areas” identified by the Negotiating Council were:

• Eastern Transvaal
• Pretoria/Witwatersrand/Vereeniging
• Orange Free State
• Eastern Cape/Transkei/Ciskei
• Western Cape
• Northern Transvaal
• Northern Cape
• Kwazulu/Natal
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Invitations for written and verbal submissions were issued in mid-August 1993 to political parties and organisations represented in the Negotiating Council, media agencies and others. The hearings were arranged from 21 September to 2 October 1993 and were held in Welkom, Kokstad, East London, Vredendal, Calvinia, Hartswater, Klerksdorp, Kwandebele, Pretoria and the World Trade Centre.

While it was recommended by the Commission that referendums should be held in February 1994 to determine boundaries in sensitive areas, the Coordinating Committee was of the opinion that multiple bilateral meetings was unfortunately the necessary route due to the extreme time constants for the defining boundaries before the election on 27 April 1994. 

Ultimately the Coordinating Committee recommended the adjustments to the boundaries as suggested by the Commission for the purposes of the Interim Constitution during the transition. This was accepted by the Planning Committee and was ultimately adopted.

The series Commission on National Symbols contains a small digitised subset of public submissions made to the Commission on National Symbols. Further material is available from the National Archives and Record Service of South Africa.

The Technical Committee on Constitutional Issues on 27 July 1993 recommended to the Negotiations Council that the selection of national symbols be removed from its tasks due the deeply political rather than technical nature. The Negotiating Council agreed and appointed a Commission on National Symbols on 7 September 1993. Commission on National Symbols ran a public submission campaign from which National Symbols were selected.

This series contains the audio recordings of the Negotiating Council. Documents of the Negotiating Council can be found in the series Negotiating Council.

The Negotiating Council, originally the Facilitating Committee, was the representative negotiating body of the Multi-Party Negotiation Process (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.