It is a Constitution We Are Expounding

(I'm a nerd. For the non-legal readers of this post, the title of this blog is a line from Justice Marshall in the Marbury v. Madison opinion. The picture is the Namibian Coat of Arms.)

I've been doing a lot of research on the Namibian Constitution. Willem gave me several books and pamphlets on the Constitution to read "for background and perspective"; like most Namibians, he is very proud of the Constitution. The best book out of the bunch is a book entitled "The Namibian Constitution in Perspective" by Joseph Diescho. It's worth quoting a few lines in full to give you a sense of the reverence for the Constitution here:

The entire process that led to the adoption of what Namibians have come to call the "Mother of All Laws" has been hailed throughout the world as the most democratic exercise in the history of Africa ...

The adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Namibia on 9 February 1990 ushered in a new understanding and appreciation of governance with responsibility in the entire region of South Africa, it not all of Africa. The collapse of dictatorial rule in Eastern Europe towards the end of 1989 signaled to African rulers that their heavy reliance on foreign governments to control their people was coming to an end. It was against the background of the three-decade-long struggle for independence and great events the world over in 1989 that the people of Namibia wrote their own constitution as the fundamental legal framework upon which their future was to be built.

A few interesting tidbits about the Constitution:

• Non-Sexist Language: The final version of the Constitution uses "he or she" throughout, the result of lobbying by women activists through their policitical structures. Kathleen Sullivan would be proud.
  
• Apartheid and Affirmative Action: Article 23 explicitly outlaws apartheid and racial discrimination, but states it will not be considered discrimination for Parliament to pass laws to help people who suffered from race or sex discrimination in the past. No arguments here about the Constitutionality of affirmative action...
  
• Environmental Emphasis: Article 95 commits the government to the "maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological processes and biological diversity of Namibia and utilization of natural resources on a sustainable basis for all Namibians, both present and future." This section also forbids the dumping or recycling foreign nuclear and toxic waste on Namibian territory.
  
• International Law is Binding: Article 144 makes the general rules of international law enforceable in Namibia, including customary international law (the norms and general practices of states, not codified but generally followed). This is different (and much simpler) than the treatment of international law in the U.S., where there is a great deal of debate over the extent to which international law is binding and enforceable.