WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-04-28 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
In a barely disguised swipe at the ruling ANC, former state president FW de Klerk has warned that tampering with the constitution by those in power is “perilous and foolhardy”.
De Klerk said in a Freedom Day message on Sunday that nothing could be more “fraught with danger” than upsetting the critical trade-offs to balance South Africa’s constitution.
“Our future peace, prosperity and success depend directly on our maintaining the critical balances in our constitution”, cautioned the man under whose presidency the negotiations began.
“Unfortunately, there are some who believe that now that virtually all the levers of state power are in their hands, they can move away from these balances and ignore, dilute or dispense with those provisions that were introduced into the constitution at the insistence of others.
“In particular, they feel that they now have sufficient power to begin to erode key aspects of the independence of the judiciary, provincial governments, property rights, media freedom and the cultural and language rights protected by the constitution.”
The De Klerk Foundation is among those that have recently fiercely objected to the government’s introduction of draft laws on expropriation and the reform of the judiciary, as well as an expected Bill that would dissolve the Scorpions.
It fears that the judges’ independence may be compromised, threatening the separation of powers laid down in the constitution and that the expropriation Bill, meant to fast-track lagging land reform, could threaten property rights.
Eyebrows have also been raised by proponents of federalism over the government’s review of the powers and number of provinces and at the ANC’s proposal that a media tribunal should be set up.
De Klerk said the “national accord” struck in the constitutional negotiations between 1990 and 1996 had already taken into account the legacy of apartheid and had tried to find a balance between competing aspirations and fears, such as equality versus unfair discrimination and “the need to protect property rights” versus the need for “fair” land reform.
He said a balance also had to be found between the need for national unity, while nurturing the country’s rich diversity and for effective service delivery while ensuring that the state represented the country’s demographics.
South Africa had made steady progress and that “all benefited” from democracy, he said, but stressed that efforts to alter the “balance” in the constitution spelled “danger”.
“If the constitution is progressively stripped of these elements, it will cease to be the hope for future generations that it has been thus far.”