Leon: Constitution in danger
2005-04-27 14:02
Cape Town - Democratic Party leader Tony Leon on Wednesday called on South Africans to defend the constitution and warned of a gradual onslaught against it.
He told a Freedom Day rally at Mitchell's Plein that the constitution was under attack by "some of the very people who were key to negotiating and affirming it in the first place".
"These days you hear very little from our government, and the African National Congress (ANC), about our constitution," said Leon.
"You hear far more from them about the Freedom Charter, the historic document which the ANC and its allies inaugurated in 1955.
"It seems that the more the ANC departs from the spirit and the letter of the constitution, the more it invokes this out-dated manifesto written over 50 years ago."
Leon said the government could not be half-hearted about freedom, and weak in defence of it.
"You cannot be in favour of freedom, and at the same time be in favour of a 'national democratic revolution', which sees the institutions of our constitution as mere instruments to be manipulated at will."
- SAPA