Summary
In Chapter 9 of Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Karl Klare’s term, adopted by Mazen Masri as a guiding principle for a one-state constitution: a constitution should not preserve the past but should anchor Transitional justice measures and transform the present into an equal reality, marking a radical break with past injustice (Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, PDF p.249-251).
Details
- Klare’s definition as quoted: a “long-term project of constitutional enactment, interpretation, and enforcement committed (not in isolation, of course, but in a historical context of conducive political developments) to transforming a country’s political and social institutions and power relationships in a democratic, participatory, and egalitarian direction” (PDF p.249-250).
- Masri’s exemplar is postapartheid South African Constitutional Court jurisprudence, quoting Shabalala and Others v Attorney-General of the Transvaal and Another (1995): the interim constitution “retains from the past only what is defensible and represents a radical and decisive break from that part of the past which is unacceptable” (PDF p.250).
- Transformation is essentially a political process in which the legal system plays an important role; in the Palestinian context it means a major change in the doctrines, principles, mindsets and practices that entrenched the current apartheid realities (PDF p.250-251).
Related pages
Rethinking Statehood in Palestine, Mazen Masri, Transitional justice, Decolonisation, Multiculturalism