Diverging Opinions of the South African Constitution: A novel conceptual framework

Abstract

By creating a novel conceptual framework, this article answers the question whether negotiators of the South African Constitution disagreed on what the widely supported document represents and embodies, and whether these diverging interpretations can be categorized as either a constitutional contract or a social contract. It became evident from the findings that there was indeed present among these negotiators widely diverging understandings of what the document symbolizes and how it is understood.