In a project entitled, Towards the Constitution of ‘Zol Meskin’ (or the ‘common person’, in Juba Arabic), the SSLS and a coalition of civil society organizations are advocating for a constitution and constitution-making process that reflects the hopes and aspirations of the South Sudanese people.
The civil society coalition began its work by sending a resource team comprised of some of the leading voices in South Sudanese civil society to learn about comparative experiences with constitutionalism elsewhere in Africa and internationally. The resource team traveled to XX countries, including South Africa, Ghana, XX and XX.
The coalition then began conducting workshops in each of the ten states of South Sudan to solicit people’s input on what they would like to see in their constitution. Individuals and groups from throughout the respective states were brought to the state capitals for three-day workshops in which they debated everything from federalism, decentralization and executive power to land, revenue sharing and the death penalty.
The resource team will use these insights from South Sudanese across the country to develop their own model constitution representing the views of Zol Meskin. This model constitution will be offered as a resource to members of the constitutional review commission and other official organs tasked with developing South Sudan’s first post-independence constitution.