Charles M. Fombad is a Professor and the Director of the Institute for International and Comparative Law, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. In the course of a career that has spanned over 30 years, he has more than 180 accredited outputs. Besides his publications, he is the coordinator and editor-in-chief of the Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) and chairs its management committee. He has received several prizes for his research, such as the research excellence award from the University of Botswana (for 2004, 2005 and 2007) and the University of Pretoria Chancellor's Award for Research 2021. His research focuses on comparative African constitutional law, legal history and media law
Nico Steytler is a professor emeritus in the Faculty of Law at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Previously, he held the South African Research Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Development, at the Dullah Omar Institute of Constitutional Law, Governance and Human Rights, UWC, from 2013 to 2022. From 1994 to 2012 was the director of the Community Law Centre, UWC (the predecessor of the Dullah Omar Institute). His research focus has been on constitutional law, multilevel government and local government in South Africa, elsewhere in Africa, and further afield, and he has published several books and contributed to many others in this field.

• Introductory Remarks


• Africa's Chequered Journey to Constitutional Democracy


• Constitutional Identity


• Introduction: Nico Steytler and Charles M Fombad: In Search of Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa


• Part 1: Overview of Concepts and Key Issues, Colonial and Traditional Constitutional Identities and Path Dependency


• 1: Charles M Fombad: Constitutional Identity and Constitutionalism in Africa: Concepts and Key Issues


• 2: George Ayittey: Constitutional Checks and Balances in Traditional Africa


• 3: Heinz Klug: Constitutional Identity and Traditional Authority in the Post-Colony


• 4: Charles M Fombad and Tresor Muhindo: The Struggle for Constitutional Identity in Francophone Africa?


• 5: Karl Kossler: Who are 'We, the People'? Pluralist Constitutional Identity after Democratic Transitions in African and European Countries


• Part 2: Case Studies


• 6: Nico Steytler: A Century of South African Constitutional Identities


• 7: Asnake Kefale: Political Changes, Constitutional Identities and Disruptions in Contemporary Ethiopia


• 8: José Pina-Delgado: Rooting Constitutional Identity in African Countries without Pre-Colonial Institutional Traditions but with National Values: The Cape Verdean Experience and the Role of the Constitutional Court


• 9: Carlson Anyangwe and Charles M Fombad: Cameroon and the Crisis of Constitutional Identity: Is Anglophone Identity Incompatible with a Cameroonian Constitutional Identity?


• 10: Sherif Elgebeily: Taking Power from the People: Shifting Constitutional Identity in Egypt


• Part 3: Conclusion


• 11: Charles M Fombad: Fostering a Sense of Constitutional Identity amid the Travails of African Constitutionalism

This book in the Stellenbosch Handbooks in African Constitutional Law series provides a critical analysis of existing paradigms, concepts, and normative ideologies of modern African constitutional identity.