Human Rights and Customary Law Under the New Constitution (Reflection‪)‬

My paper was written in 1992 and published in Transformation 22 (1993) on the eve of the appearance of South Africa's new Constitution. The legal future was unsettled. A bill of rights was to be enacted imposing a rule of equal treatment for all people in the country regardless of their race, sex or gender. At the same time, however, the freedom to practise a culture of choice was to become a guaranteed right. In other words, the stage was set for a head-on confrontation between traditional African cultures, long associated with gender discrimination, and the equality clause. Culture and fundamental rights in the Interim and Final Constitutions