Constitution of Namibia

The Constitution of Namibia was adopted on 9 February 1990 and took effect on 21 March 1990, the day of Namibia's independence from South African administration. It was drafted within three months by a Constituent Assembly elected in UN certified elections in 1989, in which seven parties took part and SWAPO held a plurality of seats but not the two thirds majority it would have needed to adopt its own draft alone, so the final text reflects broad cross party consensus. It establishes a unitary republic with an executive of president and cabinet, a bicameral parliament of a National Assembly and a National Council, and a judiciary headed by the Supreme Court, across twenty one chapters and 148 articles, with a preamble committing the state to national reconciliation and to being sovereign, secular, democratic and unitary.