President Thabo Mbeki on Sunday opened two huge wooden doors to signal the inauguration of Constitutional Hills, the new and final home of the country’s highest court.
The massive doors, at least six metres tall, have carved on them the numbers, one to 27 — the length of former president Nelson Mandela’s prison term.
Accompanying each number is one of the country’s enshrined Constitutional Rights, recited one-at-a-time by twenty seven primary school children born ten years ago in 1994, in all of the 11 official languages.
Dwarfed by a massive concrete edifice, Mbeki had minutes before expressed the hope that the court building he was opening would become a ”shining beacon of hope for the protection of human rights and the advancement of human liberty and dignity”.
The edifice bears the words ”Constitutional Court” in bright yellow, red, blue and green lettering the all eleven official languages.
”I am truly grateful for the privilege to participate in the official opening of this marvellous, new building, the final home of our country’s Constitutional Court.
”It was indeed right that this important event should take place on Human Rights Day, for those who celebrate this day, and emphasise the central role of the Constitutional Court in protecting the rights that our people won through a protracted and costly struggle,” Mbeki said.
Mbeki’s address was the culmination of a series of events in Johannesburg in the preceding week, including a two-day conference on constitutional law that ended on Saturday. Speaking before Mbeki, Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson said the court was a symbol of ”our new democratic order”.
”It is the ultimate guarantor of the rights entrenched in the Constitution. This beautiful building which is now its home stands where once a bastion of white power and oppression stood. It is appropriate that it should stand here.
”That a landmark of our largest city should no longer be a prison; that in its place should be a court which is a symbol of our democracy. And that the court should be inaugurated by a democratically elected president on Human Rights Day at a time when we celebrate ten years of democracy,” Chaskalson concluded.
In his address, Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa said the event marked the end of the first phase of various infrastructure projects announced by his provincial government four years ago.
”Working together with the local and national spheres of government we have delivered four projects that contribute to the regeneration of Johannesburg. These are the Mary Fitzgerald Square, opened by the President in 2001, the Metro mall for formal and informal traders, the Nelson Mandela Bridge also opened by the President, and the Constitutional Court which we are today handing to the national government,” Shilowa said.
There were many things, like the Old Fort prison, which would always remind ”us about our terrible past”, Shilowa added.
The Constitutional Court complex is located on what was previously Hospital Hill on Braamfontein ridge, a site that overlooks the city centre to the south and the valley in which the city’s northern suburbs nestle.
The hill was chosen by Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek president Paul Kruger in 1892 for the building of a prison and later a fort for the defence of Johannesburg.
In the years that followed the fort and jails merged to form a notorious prisons complex that housed rebels, heroes and common criminals alike. After 1994 it was felt that the prison complex would be the perfect home for the country’s highest law court.
The prisons include the Old Fort where white prisoners were held, but for one notable exception — Nelson Mandela when he was arrested in 1962; and the women’s jail whose inmates ranged from pass offenders to serial poisoner Daisy de Melker, whose ghost reputedly still stalks the cells.
Political activists were incarcerated there too ranging from Winnie Madikizela-Mandela to Ellen Kuzwayo and Helen Joseph.
Conditions were brutal and demeaning — women prisoners were not allowed to wear underwear even while menstruating.
At the notorious Number Four, prisoners ranged from 1914 Rebellion leaders such as the Boer War general Christiaan de Wet, to the Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, who spent several spells there during his passive resistance campaign between 1908 and 1913.
On average there were 2 000 prisoners held at Number Four with 12 toilets and eight showers between them.
Gloomy, tiny isolation cells in all the prisons give a chilling reminder of what many went through, with some prisoners confined in those cramped, dark quarters for a year or more.
By contrast the complex today promises to be an entertaining and educational space to visit.
There is a ”We The People Wall” where visitors can write their thoughts on the constitution and democracy. A selection of these messages is regularly engraved onto copper plates and added to the wall.
The adjacent Constitutional Court is regarded as one of the finest examples of modern architecture in South Africa. Along the Great African Steps in its atrium, made from bricks from a demolished prison block, is an outstanding collection of contemporary art in South Africa.
Meanwhile, 52 members of the Anti-Privatisation Forum were arrested on Sunday following confrontations with police.
Johannesburg Metro police spokesperson, Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, said demonstrators were marching to the opening of the Constitutional Court and were arrested in Hillbrow and Pretoria. He did not have the total number of people arrested.
Johannesburg police spokesperson Chris Wilkens gave a figure of 52 people arrested.
The APF decided to march to the opening to highlight their concerns over the installation of pre-paid water meters in the townships in and around Johannesburg.
APF spokesperson Dale McKinley confirmed that marchers had been arrested saying some were even arrested in the townships before reaching the city.
The march was declared illegal on Friday by the authorities. – Sapa