Albie Sachs: 'We have to have change'
Retired Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs has been mulling over the issue of land expropriation without compensation. He says he's glad the issue is on the discussion table.
“I almost feel a sense of relief, having argued against the necessity to change the constitution, that it’s now at the centre of a national discussion and debate,” Sachs says.
He spoke at the launch of the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s student chapter of Amnesty International South Africa, on Wednesday night.
Last year, Sachs said that a section of the constitution - which deals with property ownership - didn't need to be amended.
But he now says the decision to assign the Constitutional Review Committee to review it - has brought about a different landscape and that the point of departure is no longer whether or not it’s possible under the constitution, to bring about massive change.
“The point of departure is we have to have massive change - we have to have it,” he says, “And that’s a historical thing, it's an emotional thing, it’s an imaginative thing and it’s a justice thing”.