Il Sudafrica, ovvero il problema della presenza dell'"altro" e la sfida della giustizia

The South African transition from apartheid to democracy is analysed from the perspectives of law and justice: the constitutional principles of the ‘new’ South Africa, the experience of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and landmark decisions by the Constitutional Court of South Africa draft a new model of justice, which is of extreme interest for law scholars, lawmakers and policymakers worldwide. This model of justice quits and overcomes the idea that justice consists ultimately in ‘striking back’, and it embraces, on the contrary, an idea of justice based on understanding instead of vengeance, a reparation instead of retaliation, ubuntu instead of victimisation as stated in the Postamble of the South African ad interim Constitution which represented the constitutional roadmap towards the TRC. The essay also provides an introduction to the subsequent text of the book chapter (a text the Author has edited and translated into Italian), i.e. a dialogue between two of the main characters of the South African transition: Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a psychologist and scholar who took part in the works of the TRC, and Albie Sachs, lawyer, freedom fighter, and apartheid victim who became Justice of the Constitutional Court.