1996 — Mandela Signs the Constitution

On December 10, 1996 — International Human Rights Day — President Nelson Mandela signed South Africa's final Constitution into law at a stadium ceremony in Sharpeville, the town where police had shot dead 69 demonstrators in 1960. The document was the product of two years of negotiation by the democratically elected Constitutional Assembly, certified by the Constitutional Court.

Its Bill of Rights came into force in February 1997, closing the interim-constitution era that had governed since the 1994 elections. The setting gave the signature its weight: the law meant to protect every South African's rights was signed in the town forever linked to their denial, on the day the world sets aside for human rights.