0:00:12 > 0:00:19Hello, and welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Shaun Ley. In December, South
0:00:19 > 0:00:22Africa's ruling party the ANC chooses a successor for league of
0:00:22 > 0:00:27President Jacob Zuma. Corruption allegations denied by the President
0:00:27 > 0:00:31continued to swell, but he has survived them all. Albie Sachs is
0:00:31 > 0:00:35another survivor, but one of a different kind. He survived
0:00:35 > 0:00:39imprisonment, exile, and being blown up by the country's security forces,
0:00:39 > 0:00:42and he helped write the postapartheid constitution. He
0:00:42 > 0:00:46thinks it is one of the world's best, so why do others, especially
0:00:46 > 0:00:50the young, say that the constitution is against us, especially if you are
0:00:50 > 0:00:51poor?
0:01:14 > 0:01:18Albie Sachs, welcome to HARDtalk. You defended black South Africans
0:01:18 > 0:01:23under apartheid laws. You are in prison under those laws yourself.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27You then helped write the most fundamental law of all, the
0:01:27 > 0:01:31constitution for postapartheid South Africa, and then sat on the
0:01:31 > 0:01:34Constitutional Court to enforce that constitution. Is there enough
0:01:34 > 0:01:40respect, do you think, for the law in South Africa today?It is so
0:01:40 > 0:01:45fascinating to watch, which is the law is playing a central role in our
0:01:45 > 0:01:51country. -- because the law. The more disrespects there is for it,
0:01:51 > 0:01:55the more respect there is for the way it is responding. I have been
0:01:55 > 0:01:59off the Constitutional Court now for six or seven years, so I am not
0:01:59 > 0:02:02bragging about myself, it is my colleagues, another generation. I
0:02:02 > 0:02:09think they are doing extraordinary work. One weapon is the
0:02:09 > 0:02:13constitution, but that is not just a document, a set of words. It grew
0:02:13 > 0:02:18out of our history. It grew out of our pain. It grew out of our
0:02:18 > 0:02:22eagerness to find a way, how can we live together in one country, when
0:02:22 > 0:02:27we are trying to kill each other? It grew out of our draw in on the best
0:02:27 > 0:02:31the world had to offer in terms of governance, the rights of people. It
0:02:31 > 0:02:37is a very progressive constitution in its terms and we have strong
0:02:37 > 0:02:45institutions to back it up. And one of the reflections that has come to
0:02:45 > 0:02:48me recently is that you need three things, and if anyone of them
0:02:48 > 0:02:52missing you are in danger. You need a good constitution. I don't know
0:02:52 > 0:02:56how you guys in England have managed a couple of 100 years without one.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01You have managed. But you need a good constitution. You need
0:03:01 > 0:03:06constitutionalism. That is something in the culture of the society, not
0:03:06 > 0:03:10just a document, a sense of right and wrong, fair, unfair ways of
0:03:10 > 0:03:15doing things, and you need institutions that can be invoked,
0:03:15 > 0:03:21that work. And what has been so striking in South Africa now for all
0:03:21 > 0:03:27the allegations, the evidence, the leaks that have come out, the very
0:03:27 > 0:03:31powerful condemnations of very high figures in our society, the
0:03:31 > 0:03:36institutions have remained firm. One of them, the public detector,
0:03:36 > 0:03:42created in a chapter in the constitution, chapter nine,
0:03:42 > 0:03:47institutions for the protections of democracy. That includes the public
0:03:47 > 0:03:51protector, like the ombudsman, but much more powerful. It includes the
0:03:51 > 0:03:57Independent Electoral Commission. Can you, now, is struggling so hard,
0:03:57 > 0:04:01partly because there is a lack of faith in their Electoral Commission.
0:04:01 > 0:04:06-- Kenya, now. We had elections last year without a single complaint. It
0:04:06 > 0:04:10includes the Constitutional Court, the auditor general. A whole series
0:04:10 > 0:04:14of bodies protected by the constitution.Let's pick up on one
0:04:14 > 0:04:20of those, the public detector. The previous public protector had drawn
0:04:20 > 0:04:26up a report, you will be aware of this, over the state of capture, she
0:04:26 > 0:04:30called it, in the relationship between the President and a corrupt
0:04:30 > 0:04:38business family. She urged the President to decide who chaired the
0:04:38 > 0:04:41enquiry. Another institution established by the constitution
0:04:41 > 0:04:45said, under section 84, this power can only be exercised by the
0:04:45 > 0:04:50President. Whereupon the new public protector says, no, no, there are
0:04:50 > 0:04:53numerous reasons to believe the President is subject to a conflict
0:04:53 > 0:04:58of interest here, so he cannot possibly appoint the chairman of
0:04:58 > 0:05:00this particular committee of a commission of enquiry because he
0:05:00 > 0:05:04would have a direct personal and financial interest in the outcome.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08Two institutions, one constitution. You are on the Constitutional Court,
0:05:08 > 0:05:13you helped write the constitution. Who is right?It is not for me to
0:05:13 > 0:05:20answer. The very issue now is being debated in the Constitutional Court,
0:05:20 > 0:05:23and on one hand, the constitution says the power to create commissions
0:05:23 > 0:05:27of enquiry belongs to the President. On the other hand, the
0:05:27 > 0:05:31recommendations of the public detector can be put into force, and
0:05:31 > 0:05:36she says, in this particular case, you would appoint the commission of
0:05:36 > 0:05:40enquiry. We are not going to say that, but you wouldn't choose the
0:05:40 > 0:05:44judge to have that. The chief justice will choose. And then you
0:05:44 > 0:05:51will have to. It is the kind of question you put to final year law
0:05:51 > 0:05:56students. For them to grapple with. And it will be making law. So it is
0:05:56 > 0:06:00not for me to pronounce on it.And you would argue there is no right
0:06:00 > 0:06:04answer on that, but twin, the institutions have to resolve this?I
0:06:04 > 0:06:09wouldn't say there is no right answer. I think there is a correct
0:06:09 > 0:06:15answer. I won't say what I think it is, that my colleagues, or those who
0:06:15 > 0:06:18would be my colleagues if I were still on the bench, they will decide
0:06:18 > 0:06:22that. What I can be sure of is that they will give a soundly reasoned
0:06:22 > 0:06:26answer. I am pretty confident that whatever the answer is, it will be
0:06:26 > 0:06:30accepted.And that is the key thing, isn't it?Whether it goes in his
0:06:30 > 0:06:34favour or against him, it will be accepted.Do you think the public
0:06:34 > 0:06:37protector's Palace need to be strengthened, now, watching this in
0:06:37 > 0:06:41operation over the past few years, in a highly political environment?
0:06:41 > 0:06:45It can't get more political than investigating the President.I think
0:06:45 > 0:06:48what the public protector needs is not so much more power, the power is
0:06:48 > 0:06:52there in the constitution, but more re- sources.Why do you think there
0:06:52 > 0:06:55have been a growing number of attacks on the constitution? It does
0:06:55 > 0:07:01seem to have come more contested in the last couple of years than in the
0:07:01 > 0:07:04first decade, decade and a half of poster partied South Africa.The
0:07:04 > 0:07:09challenges are coming from two, well, I don't even have the extra
0:07:09 > 0:07:13arm to show how far apart they are. Just imagine this arm.Indeed, as it
0:07:13 > 0:07:18once was.As it was. On the one hand, the challenge, the judges are
0:07:18 > 0:07:24overreaching themselves. That comes from supporters of the president
0:07:24 > 0:07:29today. On the other hand, it comes from young people saying that this
0:07:29 > 0:07:33constitution is standing in the way of real transformation of land
0:07:33 > 0:07:38redistribution in the country. It is blocking the way. And you heard this
0:07:38 > 0:07:42first hand, didn't you? When you delivered that lecture back in the
0:07:42 > 0:07:45University of Western Cape and some of the audience said to you, every
0:07:45 > 0:07:48generation has its mission, yours was political liberation, ours is
0:07:48 > 0:07:52economic liberation. And it is fantastic to hear that challenge. I
0:07:52 > 0:07:56have spent a lot of time involved now and what is pompously called
0:07:56 > 0:08:02intergenerational discourse, and it is terrific. Those young people,
0:08:02 > 0:08:06they like to see that I have got some spirit and some stories to
0:08:06 > 0:08:09tell, and I like the passion, the eagerness, the idealism, the
0:08:09 > 0:08:13exquisite and beautiful use of language. The country can only
0:08:13 > 0:08:16benefit when people are thinking, even if the thought is sometimes as
0:08:16 > 0:08:20cheeky and irreverent as my thought was at that age. It stirs up the
0:08:20 > 0:08:25country.There is a harsh edge to this. It is the economic reality in
0:08:25 > 0:08:28which many South Africans are living. Many of those young people
0:08:28 > 0:08:32you are speaking to, their families, that is what they have grown up
0:08:32 > 0:08:35with. Whatever the promise of a multiracial South Africa in which
0:08:35 > 0:08:38black South Africans and coloured South Africans took their place as
0:08:38 > 0:08:42equal citizens with white South Africans, the economic reality is an
0:08:42 > 0:08:47unemployment rate of 54% for young people and an overall unemployment
0:08:47 > 0:08:53rate of 27% for everybody. Far too high. Intense, entrenched poverty. A
0:08:53 > 0:08:56sense that, really, South Africa is not to South Africa they were
0:08:56 > 0:09:01promised. Jonathan Jansen says that when speaking to students, if the
0:09:01 > 0:09:06late Nelson Mandela gets any mention at all it is is a sellout. The man
0:09:06 > 0:09:09who led South Africa into a soft transition which left white
0:09:09 > 0:09:12privilege undisturbed and black poverty and diminished. He is right,
0:09:12 > 0:09:18isn't he?He's wrong. He's wrong, wrong, wrong. He's not wrong to say
0:09:18 > 0:09:26that that is what people saying, but what they are saying Mrs almost
0:09:26 > 0:09:31completely the reality of what was achieved. -- misses almost. We had
0:09:31 > 0:09:34to destroy the system of apartheid to open the way to economic
0:09:34 > 0:09:38transformation.But it hasn't happened.If we tried everything at
0:09:38 > 0:09:42once we would have had chaos, disaster, collapse. People would
0:09:42 > 0:09:46have said black majority rule just leads to chaos. So we dismantled the
0:09:46 > 0:09:49institutions of apartheid, we integrated the army, and we gave
0:09:49 > 0:09:55power to Parliament to bring about transformation. If Parliament has
0:09:55 > 0:10:00not done enough, that is a very valid question, but don't blame
0:10:00 > 0:10:03Mandela, don't blame the constitution. I am not a lawyer's
0:10:03 > 0:10:08lawyer, who believes in the law as such. But we got so much into that
0:10:08 > 0:10:12constitution, and you read it, the text, the language, transformation
0:10:12 > 0:10:18is for change. The argument that I'm advancing, in many ways, use the
0:10:18 > 0:10:23constitution. Don't trample on it. It is your biggest weapon to bring
0:10:23 > 0:10:27about a second liberation which will be the economic liberation.On that
0:10:27 > 0:10:30second liberation, do you back the argument there should be an
0:10:30 > 0:10:34amendment to the constitution? This has been advanced by Julius Lim of
0:10:34 > 0:10:37the economic freedom Fighters, which would actually allow the state to
0:10:37 > 0:10:39appropriate land without compensation. His argument is
0:10:39 > 0:10:45simple. We are told and arrows that we own the land, but we don't own
0:10:45 > 0:10:49the land. The distribution of land, land ownership, it is still really
0:10:49 > 0:10:52concentrated in a small number of hands, just as it was before
0:10:52 > 0:10:56apartheid was abolished.He's absolutely right that the patterns
0:10:56 > 0:11:01land ownership have changed very slightly. It is not as though
0:11:01 > 0:11:04nothing has been done. Something like 80,000 people who were
0:11:04 > 0:11:11dispossessed under apartheid got their land back or got money back.
0:11:11 > 0:11:16And programmes for land reform remained to be implemented. So that
0:11:16 > 0:11:21aspect is completely correct. It is possible to confiscate land,
0:11:21 > 0:11:25expropriated land, at a valley is well below market value, if you
0:11:25 > 0:11:32apply the constitution. -- at values well below.Section 25?Yes, section
0:11:32 > 0:11:3725, if it is lying fallow when people needed to housing, it can be
0:11:37 > 0:11:41used. That could be taken into account. If the land was bought for
0:11:41 > 0:11:44a song, if the government has invested a lot into loans to the
0:11:44 > 0:11:48farmers, all of that can be taken into account. None of that has
0:11:48 > 0:11:52really been tried, so try that first. The problem with doing it
0:11:52 > 0:11:55without compensation is that there is no discipline at all. You can
0:11:55 > 0:11:58have state bureaucrats seizing the land, dishing it out to their
0:11:58 > 0:12:02friends. We don't want that.You are worried about the precedent set by
0:12:02 > 0:12:07Zimbabwe?I don't want to mention particular countries, but it is not
0:12:07 > 0:12:10restricted to one country. It has happened in many countries, where
0:12:10 > 0:12:13people who fought bravely for freedom Gottfried, but then used
0:12:13 > 0:12:18their position in the state to accumulate enormous tracts of land
0:12:18 > 0:12:22for themselves and their families. -- fought bravely for freedom got
0:12:22 > 0:12:27freedom.Those allegations have remade get some in South Africa as
0:12:27 > 0:12:32well, but we will leave that for now. Who owns the land, who had a
0:12:32 > 0:12:36stake in the nation, that was an important part of the campaign.We
0:12:36 > 0:12:40used to say, Africa come back. In that sense, it has come back, in a
0:12:40 > 0:12:44kind of moral sense, a leadership sense, the people are calling the
0:12:44 > 0:12:48shots politically. Africa, and overwhelmingly black Africans, we
0:12:48 > 0:12:54hear the different languages being used in Parliament, in this debate,
0:12:54 > 0:12:58but we have not got Africa back in the sense of direct connection with
0:12:58 > 0:13:02means of production, with the soil, with the way people live. That has
0:13:02 > 0:13:06to be done, it is a very valid claim that is being made.During that long
0:13:06 > 0:13:09struggle, the first part of that struggle, because from the sound of
0:13:09 > 0:13:12that thinks some of these struggles continue, you spend months in
0:13:12 > 0:13:16solitary confinement. Do you think you still bear the scars of that
0:13:16 > 0:13:22area inside?I do. You never get over solitary confinement. Italy is
0:13:22 > 0:13:29a residue, a repository of deep, deep sadness. -- it leaves a
0:13:29 > 0:13:32residue. Ironically, I can't explain it, when I was alone up, and I
0:13:32 > 0:13:38survived, it will away that misery. So that was almost a catharsis of
0:13:38 > 0:13:42what had gone before?It was like saying, OK, they tried to kill you.
0:13:42 > 0:13:47And I survived. I survived, you know? People say the definition of
0:13:47 > 0:13:51an optimist is that the glass is half full. I was a mystic. They only
0:13:51 > 0:13:56blew off my arm. I survived. That was 1988 and I still feel that
0:13:56 > 0:14:00today.
0:14:00 > 0:14:05The period of solitary confinement was in the 1960s, and you spend how
0:14:05 > 0:14:05long...
0:14:06 > 0:14:07was in the 1960s, and you spend how long...It was 168 days the first
0:14:07 > 0:14:11time and about three months the second time, with some sleep
0:14:11 > 0:14:15deprivation thrown in.And you talk about the terrible moment when you
0:14:15 > 0:14:18realise that they had actually beating your body, not physically be
0:14:18 > 0:14:22the new, but had kind of put you under such strain and stress that
0:14:22 > 0:14:25you started to talk, and you didn't talk about people who they could
0:14:25 > 0:14:30get, you talked about people who had gone abroad or were passed. Did you
0:14:30 > 0:14:34fear that, if that process had continued much longer, you would
0:14:34 > 0:14:38have been so broken that you would have?I don't know, it is possible.
0:14:38 > 0:14:42I got through the first session completely, I didn't say a word, 168
0:14:42 > 0:14:46days. The second time it was a much rougher treatment and sleep
0:14:46 > 0:14:50deprivation, I think something in my food, I collapsed on the ground,
0:14:50 > 0:14:55they poured water on me, kept my eyes open. And my choice was try and
0:14:55 > 0:15:00control my breakdown, because others had withstood it for three, four,
0:15:00 > 0:15:03five days, collapsed completely. And then, fortunately, the way these
0:15:03 > 0:15:10things happen, somebody... Another person who had undergone this in
0:15:10 > 0:15:14another cell put in an application to court, I heard about it, I
0:15:14 > 0:15:17smuggled out a tiny little note about my own experience, and the
0:15:17 > 0:15:22court actually, at that stage, put a stop to the interrogation. So who
0:15:22 > 0:15:26knows? I might not the sitting here today that hadn't been for that
0:15:26 > 0:15:31court application.You talk them about comrades are dead, people you
0:15:31 > 0:15:34thought they couldn't get out, to give them something.At that stage I
0:15:34 > 0:15:38was doing that, they were preparing to come back and get me afterwards.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42I started off by saying, I am making this statement under duress, and so
0:15:42 > 0:15:46on. They just collided it all from the actual document that they had.
0:15:46 > 0:15:51But afterwards I discovered, I had complained to a magistrate. It is
0:15:51 > 0:15:56thereon... You know, we used to have these flimsy pink and green carbon
0:15:56 > 0:16:01copies, and there it is. If anybody wants to...Faint, but still
0:16:01 > 0:16:05preserved for all eternity.That I actually complained at the time.You
0:16:05 > 0:16:09mentioned a couple of times already the subsequent act, the attempt to
0:16:09 > 0:16:13murder you buy South African security services. What do you
0:16:13 > 0:16:20recall that they?It has shaped me, and it has not only shaped me
0:16:20 > 0:16:26physically, it shaped my thinking. Because when I got a letter, I am
0:16:26 > 0:16:30recovering in a London hospital, don't worry comrade, we will
0:16:30 > 0:16:34eventually, avenge me? We are going to cut off their arms, blind blind
0:16:34 > 0:16:39in one eye? Is that what you want? If we get freedom, we get democracy,
0:16:39 > 0:16:43we get justice, that will be my soft vengeance. Roses and lilies will
0:16:43 > 0:16:48grow out of my arm. And since 1988, soft vengeance has been my theme.
0:16:48 > 0:16:51And getting the Constitution, helping to write a constitution,
0:16:51 > 0:16:56sitting on a court that is upholding the Constitution, it is all part of
0:16:56 > 0:16:59my soft vengeance. And soft vengeance is much more powerful than
0:16:59 > 0:17:03hard vengeance. Hard vengeance is we are stronger, we are doing to them
0:17:03 > 0:17:07what they did to us. Soft vengeance as the triumph of the ideals.All
0:17:07 > 0:17:10the pain you went through, all that period of recovery and
0:17:10 > 0:17:14convalescence, all, I guess, the fear that at some point you may not
0:17:14 > 0:17:19have made it, you didn't feel any anger?On the contrary, I felt joy.
0:17:19 > 0:17:24That I had survived, and it is for something. It validates all the
0:17:24 > 0:17:29pain, the hardship, the misery, the doubts. Yes, we are getting
0:17:29 > 0:17:33democracy in the country. Yes, we have a court that will stand up to
0:17:33 > 0:17:37the President, to Parliament, to wherever, if necessary, in terms of
0:17:37 > 0:17:41the Constitution.And yet you say that, when you took a very young son
0:17:41 > 0:17:45Oliver to the scene, planning to tell him exactly what had happened
0:17:45 > 0:17:50to his proper, you couldn't quite bring yourself to tell him the full
0:17:50 > 0:17:56evil of the system that you had been fighting -- Papa.I could tell him
0:17:56 > 0:18:02about the bomb, the event. Something inside me just blocks me. I didn't
0:18:02 > 0:18:07want to tell him that his mum and his dad would have been breaking the
0:18:07 > 0:18:13law just by kissing each other, let alone conceiving him. I didn't want
0:18:13 > 0:18:17him to hear that from me.Because his mum was black and you were
0:18:17 > 0:18:21white.She is black, all would have been classified as black, I would
0:18:21 > 0:18:25have been classified as white. I didn't want him to carry that burden
0:18:25 > 0:18:29from his dad. He will learn about in history, from others. He is already
0:18:29 > 0:18:33learning about it.And for you, that is still the most revolting thing
0:18:33 > 0:18:37about the system, the inhumanity of that, as much as the violence, as
0:18:37 > 0:18:41much as the terrible thing, like, for example, the agents who tried to
0:18:41 > 0:18:45kill you.Yes, it is the humanity of the conception, that some people are
0:18:45 > 0:18:50worth more than other people. This is foundational, and it is that
0:18:50 > 0:18:53denial of basic human dignity. And that has been a huge achievement in
0:18:53 > 0:18:57South Africa. There is so much that is wrong now. It is not only
0:18:57 > 0:19:01corruption, it is unemployment, there is violence, racism in our
0:19:01 > 0:19:06society is still very, very strong. But we have got a country. We didn't
0:19:06 > 0:19:10have a country before South Africa. We have got a Constitution, we have
0:19:10 > 0:19:14got institutions, and we have got people who speak their minds.
0:19:14 > 0:19:20Leaders come and go, but the people never die. It is a very romantic
0:19:20 > 0:19:24notion, but I think it is a notion worth holding on to, that people
0:19:24 > 0:19:28never die. I wonder if there is a bit of romance that perhaps has got
0:19:28 > 0:19:31in the way the transition for South Africa, and added that perfectly
0:19:31 > 0:19:34understandable sense of camaraderie, that sense of loyalty comrade 's who
0:19:34 > 0:19:39fought in the struggle for so long, and the ideal of the African
0:19:39 > 0:19:42National Congress, to the principal and the belief that you all swore
0:19:42 > 0:19:46to. Do you think perhaps some people have held onto that too long, and
0:19:46 > 0:19:52perhaps being too willing to put, in a crude way, party before country?
0:19:52 > 0:19:56No, the values you can never hold onto long, never, never, never. And
0:19:56 > 0:20:00the value has always had that critical self reflection element to
0:20:00 > 0:20:08it. Bolivar, who I am speaking about a lot now, he was so open-minded, so
0:20:08 > 0:20:12willing to embrace new ways of looking things, but those core
0:20:12 > 0:20:16values of non- racism, never change. That shouldn't change. The loyalty
0:20:16 > 0:20:21is to the values.You cannot have failed to see that, in a succession
0:20:21 > 0:20:25of votes of no confidence against Jacob Zuma, for all the allegations
0:20:25 > 0:20:30against him, the ANC MPs loyally trooped through the lobby supporting
0:20:30 > 0:20:35the President, and in the first ballot which is held with the secret
0:20:35 > 0:20:40ballot, the most recent, suddenly perhaps 25, maybe as many as 30 ANC
0:20:40 > 0:20:45MPs vote against him. That is a revelation, isn't it? That actually
0:20:45 > 0:20:49this is a corrosive thing, this loyalty to party. Only when they are
0:20:49 > 0:20:52protected by the secret ballot do they vote with their conscience.It
0:20:52 > 0:20:57is even more complicated than that, because the story was, many more
0:20:57 > 0:21:00would have voted in favour, except they felt it wasn't for Parliament
0:21:00 > 0:21:06to change the president of the ANC. The ANC is having a conference in
0:21:06 > 0:21:11December, the ANC has to do it itself.That's fine, but if you are
0:21:11 > 0:21:15one of the people on the end of all that, the ordinary people of South
0:21:15 > 0:21:19Africa, you can say we can have this debate and talk about it, but
0:21:19 > 0:21:22nothing changes. And we here for example all these allegations, the
0:21:22 > 0:21:26public prosecutor finds he is $44 million, I think, have been spent on
0:21:26 > 0:21:29sorting out his property for security, he is told to pay some of
0:21:29 > 0:21:33it back and says I am not going to pay it back. Nothing changes,
0:21:33 > 0:21:37nothing happens.No, no, no. He was ordered to pay some of it back, and
0:21:37 > 0:21:43he paid it back.Only because the court intervened.Yes, the court
0:21:43 > 0:21:46intervened and his own counsel said we acknowledge he has to pay it
0:21:46 > 0:21:50back. That is not insignificant. In fact, I would say it is hugely
0:21:50 > 0:21:53significant.Would it be better for the country there was a change of
0:21:53 > 0:21:58president sooner than 2019?I am not going to get drawn into that simply
0:21:58 > 0:22:04because I don't think it is right is a former judge. It is a question I
0:22:04 > 0:22:10would love to offer my opinions on, but...We would love you to do so.I
0:22:10 > 0:22:16require... It is a kind of judicial prudence. I won't answer.Are you
0:22:16 > 0:22:21disappointed with South Africa as it is today? Is it that sense of the
0:22:21 > 0:22:27curate's egg? Good in parts?I think no, no. I am much more affirmative
0:22:27 > 0:22:32than that. It is partly... I lived in Mozambique after independence. It
0:22:32 > 0:22:42was fantastic. We were so excited, we were lifted up by this
0:22:42 > 0:22:46revolution, and it clashed. -- crashed. Bitter civil war, just
0:22:46 > 0:22:51chaotic.Are you saying at least South Africa isn't as bad as that?
0:22:51 > 0:22:55We haven't had that, it hasn't happened. And collections are
0:22:55 > 0:22:59meaningful. We had a higher percentage polled around municipal
0:22:59 > 0:23:02elections last year than in America had for their president, and there
0:23:02 > 0:23:05wasn't a single complaint afterwards.Let me ask you a
0:23:05 > 0:23:11question, and it has nothing to do with individuals.Yes.Whoever he or
0:23:11 > 0:23:15she is who takes office after summer of 2019, watches South Africa's next
0:23:15 > 0:23:19president came to do differently than the previous three presidents?
0:23:19 > 0:23:29I would hope, whoever comes president of the ANC, who was in
0:23:29 > 0:23:33automatically the future president of South Africa, because people have
0:23:33 > 0:23:36a vote in general elections after that.They do, but it has been the
0:23:36 > 0:23:41ANC so far.Well, giving strong emphasis on restoring integrity of
0:23:41 > 0:23:48institutions, restoring the values of non- racism, in creating
0:23:48 > 0:23:56conditions for serious and deep going economic transformation, but
0:23:56 > 0:24:00getting advice from as many sources as possible, that with a strong
0:24:00 > 0:24:06initiative in that regard. And maybe cutting down on some of the... The
0:24:06 > 0:24:12bitterness, the sharpness, the toxic elements of our debate. However it
0:24:12 > 0:24:19might be.Albie Sachs, former justice of the Constitutional Court,
0:24:19 > 0:24:23campaigner for the end of apartheid, thank you so much for being with us
0:24:23 > 0:24:25on HARDtalk. Thank you.