The Invisible Constitution in Comparative Perspective

Transition (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2010), 140.

69 

First Certification Decision, note 63 [34].

70 

Ibid.

, 36.

71 

Ibid.

, 37.

72 

Ebrahim and Miller, Supra note 68, 141.

73 

First Certification Decision, note 63 [484].

74 

(Draft) Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996 ss 23, 24(1), Sch 6 s22(1)(b), 74m 194, 

196, 229.

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Interim Constitutions and the Invisible Constitution 

183

in which the Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty violated the 

rights to life and dignity now guaranteed in the SA-IC.

75

 Ackerman J explicitly 

referred to non-textual factors such as the history of the previous regime:

We have moved from a past characterised by much which was arbitrary  

and unequal in the operation of the law to a present and a future in a  

constitutional state where state action must be such that it is capable of 

being analysed and justified rationally. The idea of the constitutional state 

presupposes a system whose operation can be rationally tested against or in 

terms of the law. Arbitrariness, by its very nature, is dissonant with these core 

concepts of our new constitutional order. Neither arbitrary action nor laws 

or rules which are inherently arbitrary or must lead to arbitrary application 

can, in any real sense, be tested against the precepts or principles of the 

Constitution.

76

This interpretation of the SA-IC is particularly interesting given that the death 

penalty was a highly controversial but unresolved issue in the negotiations at 

Kempton Park. This position on the death penalty has been maintained by the 

Constitutional Court in the twenty-one years since Makwanyane and it is argu-

able that the decision was endorsed by the drafters of the 1996 Constitution of 

the Republic of South Africa, through their enactment of that text.

77

In this way, the interpretation of the interim constitution of South Africa 

and the reference to non-textual features, has had an enduring effect on the 

‘invisible’ constitutional law of South Africa. This case and others decided in 

the interim period according to the provisions of the interim constitution have 

had a profound impact on South African constitutional law, particularly in 

relation to human rights issues.

78

Chief Justice Sólyom of the Hungarian Constitutional Court, in his con-

curring opinion in a decision that ruled that the death penalty was unconsti-

tutional, stated that

The Constitutional Court shall continue its work to define the principled 

foundations of the Constitution and of the rights inherent to it. Its decisions 

would create a coherent system which serves as a secure standard of con-

stitutionality, as an invisible constitution above the Constitution in force 

which is still subject to modifications dictated by daily political interest.  

75 

S v. Makwanyane and Another (1995) 3 SA 391.

76 

Ibid.

, 4.

77 

This point was suggested by Justice Kate O’Regan, formerly of the South African Constitution-

al Court, at the Invisible Constitution Roundtable, note 13.

78 

Zuma & Ors (1995) 2 SA 642.

---

184 

Caitlin Goss

The Constitutional Court enjoys freedom in this process as long as it keeps 

within the bounds of constitutionality.

79

In this passage, Sólyom advances a notion of an invisible constitution which 

exists above ‘the Constitution in force’. The Hungarian constitution in ques-

tion was a 1989 Act

80

 which heavily amended the 1949, communist-era con-

stitution,

81

 and experienced high rates of amendment, including in the early 

post-communist years.

82

In the post-transition years, particularly between 1990 and 1993, the 

Hungarian Constitutional Court made landmark decisions in relation to the 

separation of church and state, freedom of speech, the death penalty,

83

 retro-

active criminalisation

84

 and other human rights issues.

85

Schwartz, in his book on The Struggle for Constitutional Justice in Post-