As South Africa marks 20 years since the Constitution, VOC will on Wednesday launch a special series called Constitution Matters. The series aims to make South African citizens understand how the Constitution can be used to fight for social justice and to educate citizens on their rights and responsibilities. This series is about bridging the divide between South Africans and the Constitution, to advance our democracy.

The project was started by the Council of the Advancement of the South African Constitution, who approached a student organisation called Students for Law and Social Justice at the University of Cape Town to initiate the programme.

Programme coordinator Tanya Magaisa, a law Student at UCT, says the series is aimed at getting ordinary citizens actively engaged on matters related to the Constitution, which would otherwise be very exclusionary.

“The form of discussion and debate around the Constitution usually covers a lot of jargon that ordinary people don’t understand. The Constitution has a real impact on peoples lived realities and many marginalised communities are affected by the decisions in the Constitutional court,” she says.

“Due to this we said let’s look for a local radio station that speaks to the ordinary citizens and make the Constitution accessible.”

Topics to be covered:

-Constitution 20 years into Democracy

-Transformative Constitutionalism

-The right to Education

-Limitation of rights

-The Right to Property

-The Right to Equality

-Freedom of expression

The series will run on air for seven weeks every Wednesday at 6pm. VOC