Sir Seretse's misgivings about Botswana's constitution

To varying degrees, our independence Constitution has its supporters and critics. Despite the various amendments that were introduced over the years, it did not change much from its original form and content.

It was certainly not a perfect document. I don’t think that even its framers were of the opinion that it was flawless – or timeless. As constitutional scholars are wont to remind us there is no perfect Constitution anywhere. Even in the best case, a country’s Constitution is a compromise of a society’s many competing and, at times, conflicting interests. As with all compromises, the glass will always either be half-full or half-empty; it is almost impossible to have a universal consensus of the entire society.