South African Legal Culture and its Dis/Empowerment Paradox

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sindiso Mnisi Weeks
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Legal Culture ◽  
Constitutional Democracy ◽  
Rights Protection ◽  
Historical View ◽  
Socioeconomic Rights ◽  
Socioeconomic Transformation ◽  
The World ◽  
Before And After

Twenty-five years since becoming a constitutional democracy, South Africa presents the perplexing paradox of arguably having the most progressive constitution in the world, marked by full-throated socioeconomic rights protection, while also being the most unequal country in the world. This chapter makes the argument that this alarming paradox can be at least partly understood in terms of a ‘dis/empowerment paradox’ endemic to South Africa’s legal culture. It takes a historical view of the formation and impact of South African legal culture and the various levels and ways in which the dis/empowerment paradox argued for has been, and continues to be, characteristic thereof. The chapter traces the contributions of the judiciary to shaping the country’s legally pluralistic culture over the course of history and into the present. It ultimately points to judicial complicity in restraining the full realization of freedom and justice under the law—both before and after the dawn of South Africa’s modern-day Constitution—by under-utilizing law’s potential for liberation. Tracing this historical arc is aimed at helping legal, anthropological, and wider readers not familiar with South Africa’s particular circumstances to better understand the concluding argument: namely, that the purported solution to South Africa’s problems described as ‘transformative constitutionalism’ presents notable pitfalls. While the chapter does not argue that the judiciary is solely, or even mainly, responsible for the dis/empowerment paradox of law, it does argue that the judiciary is somewhat complicit in the limited socioeconomic transformation seen subsequent to adoption of the country’s progressive Constitution.

scholarly journals An Evaluative Study of Criminalistics: A Case of South African Counterfeiting and Knock-Off Menace

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Godfrey Thenga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Capital Flight ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Counterfeit Goods ◽  
Evaluative Study ◽  
The World

Counterfeit goods are a health hazard to human life, environment and business. More so as the goods destroy the viability of legitimate businesses across the world. Counterfeit goods are characterized as a threat to the financial viability of legitimate businesses and has a dire impact on the tax revenue of countries, necessitating its effective and efficient policing for the financial wellbeing of countries. If not well managed, counterfeit goods could lead to unemployment, disinvestment and capital flight in countries. The available evidence reveals that even though counterfeit goods has dire consequences for the economic wellbeing of countries, its penalties in most African countries are less severe in comparison to penalties for other crimes. The sight of counterfeit goods in many places, such as on busy street corners and transportation terminals in the Southern parts of Africa, attests to its prevalence in the continent. Especially in South Africa as the country has become a transit point for contrabands. Post 1994, South Africa opened its borders to the world of branded and protected goods and this enabled rogue people to trade in counterfeit goods. Effective policing is hindered by the use of sophisticated skills and expertise that leads to counterfeit goods resembling genuine goods. Moreover, in South Africa, the problem persists despite the promulgation of the Counterfeit Goods Act 37 of 1997, thus questioning the effectiveness of the policing strategies in use to quell the problem.

South African Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Nganje ◽  
Odilile Ayodele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Conception ◽  
The Government

In its foreign policy posture and ambitions, post-apartheid South Africa is like no other country on the continent, having earned the reputation of punching above its weight. Upon rejoining the international community in the mid-1990s based on a new democratic and African identity, it laid out and invested considerable material and intellectual resources in pursuing a vision of the world that was consistent with the ideals and aspirations of the indigenous anti-apartheid movement. This translated into a commitment to foreground the ideals of human rights, democratic governance, and socioeconomic justice in its foreign relations, which had been reoriented away from their Western focus during the apartheid period, to give expression to post-apartheid South Africa’s new role conception as a champion of the marginalized interests for Africa and rest of the Global South. Since the start of the 21st century, this new foreign policy orientation and its underlying principles have passed through various gradations, reflecting not only the personal idiosyncrasies of successive presidents but also changes in the domestic environment as well as lessons learned by the new crop of leaders in Pretoria, as they sought to navigate a complex and fluid continental and global environment. From a rather naive attempt to domesticate international politics by projecting its constitutional values onto the world stage during the presidency of Nelson Mandela, South Africa would be socialized into, and embrace gradually, the logic of realpolitik, even as it continued to espouse an ethical foreign policy, much to the chagrin of the detractors of the government of the African National Congress within and outside the country. With the fading away of the global liberal democratic consensus into which post-apartheid South Africa was born, coupled with a crumbling of the material and moral base that had at some point inspired a sense of South African exceptionalism, Pretoria’s irreversible march into an unashamedly pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy posture is near complete.

Strategic Litigation in South Africa and Uganda: Shared Perspectives and Comparative Lessons

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
John C Mubangizi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Care Services ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
Strategic Litigation

Abstract The South African Constitution, particularly its Bill of Rights, is regarded as one of the most progressive in the world. The Ugandan Constitution, adopted around the same time as its South African counterpart, also has a Bill of Rights. Lawyers and advocacy groups in both countries have taken advantage of their constitutions to challenge the government to enforce several rights ranging from health care services, education, water and sanitation, to housing and social security, albeit at a lower scale and with less impact and significance in Uganda than South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and determine the constitutional impact of strategic litigation in South Africa and Uganda. The paper begins with a conceptual context of strategic litigation. The specific reasons for the choice of the two countries are highlighted before focusing, in a comparative way, on some relevant organizations and the various court decisions that have emanated from strategic litigation in both countries. The paper identifies similarities and differences between Ugandan and South African approaches to strategic litigation. Conclusions are then made after highlighting the comparative lessons that both countries can learn from each other, but also what other African states can learn from these two countries’ experiences.

scholarly journals ‘The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper’ (WB Yeats): enhancing resilience among deaf young people in South Africa through photography and filmmaking

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alys Young ◽  
Lorenzo Ferrarini ◽  
Andrew Irving ◽  
Claudine Storbeck ◽  
Robyn Swannack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
South African ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
The World ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research Project

This article concerns deaf children and young people living in South Africa who are South African Sign Language users and who participated in an interdisciplinary research project using the medium of teaching film and photography with the goal of enhancing resilience. Specifically, this paper explores three questions that emerged from the deaf young people’s experience and involvement with the project: (i) What is disclosed about deaf young people’s worldmaking through the filmic and photographic modality? (ii) What specific impacts do deaf young people’s ontologically visual habitations of the world have on the production of their film/photographic works? (iii) How does deaf young people’s visual, embodied praxis through film and photography enable resilience? The presentation of findings and related theoretical discussion is organised around three key themes: (i) ‘writing’ into reality through photographic practice, (ii) filmmaking as embodied emotional praxis and (iii) enhancing resilience through visual methodologies. The discussion is interspersed with examples of the young people’s own work.

A study of the litter loadings in urban drainage systems - methodology and objectives

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Marais ◽  
N. Armitage ◽  
S. Pithey
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Monitoring Programme ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Urban Drainage ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Systems Methodology ◽  
Drainage Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Urban Drainage Systems

The recently completed report on “The removal of urban litter from stormwater conduits and streams” (by Armitage et al.) notes that little data is available on the nature and quantity of litter that finds its way into the stormwater drainage systems. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) estimated in 1991 that 780 000 tonnes of waste a year was entering the drainage systems of South Africa, representing a potential removal cost in excess of two billion rand. There is thus a considerable need for finding ways to reduce litter loadings through better catchment management. Although suggestions have been made as to how this might be achieved, there is very little scientifically verified data from anywhere in the world to show that any of these proposed methods would be effective in South Africa. Only through an improved knowledge of the litter loadings in South African urban drainage systems can appropriate strategies to reduce litter loadings be arrived at. This improved knowledge is one of the twin objectives of the Water Research Commission Project No. K5/1051 entitled “The reduction of urban litter in drainage systems through integrated catchment management.” Under this project a three-year monitoring programme has been instituted in nine catchments covering a range of different land uses, socio-economic levels and densities in the Cape Metropolitan Area. This paper focuses on the methodology behind the monitoring programme and the objectives it is hoped to achieve.

scholarly journals Testing the inescapable network of mutuality: Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King Jr and the challenges of post-liberation South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan A. Boesak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethical Stance ◽  
Martin Luther King

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 50 years ago on 04 April 1968, has been recalled in the United States with memorial services, conferences, public discussions and books. In contrast, the commemoration in 2017 of the death of Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, 50 years ago on December 1967, passed almost unremarked. That is to our detriment. Yet, these two Christian fighters for freedom, in different contexts, did not only have much in common, but they also left remarkably similar and equally inspiring legacies for South Africa, the United States and the world in the ways they lived their lives in complete faith commitment to ideals and ways of struggle that may guide us in the ongoing struggles to make the world a more just, peacable and humane place. For South African reflections on our ethical stance in the fierce, continuing struggles for justice, dignity and the authenticity of our democracy, I propose that these two leaders should be considered in tandem. We should learn from both. This article engages Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’, applies it to the struggle for freedom in South Africa and explores the ways in which South Africans can embrace these ethical ideals in facing the challenges of post-liberation.

Symposium Editor's Introduction

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-262
Author(s):  
Lawrence G. Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Public Issue ◽  
World Community ◽  
The World ◽  
African Youth

Valparaiso University School of Law and the Christian Legal Society annually present a symposium on a critical public issue which is examined from a variety of perspectives. Between October 28-31, 1987, a major symposium was held entitled: “Perspectives on South African Liberation.” In the light of press and other media restrictions in effect since a state of emergency was declared in South Africa on June 12, 1986, and the banning of all political activity by 17 anti-apartheid organizations on February 24, 1988, it is crucial that the world community have access to current information and analysis concerning developments in that tragic land.The Pretoria regime has renewed the state of emergency for a third year following an unprecedented three-day nationwide protest strike on June 6-8 by more than two million black workers mobilized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and other anti-apartheid groups to protest the recent bannings, a proposed restrictive labor bill, the continuation of apartheid and the regime's violence. These comments are written on June 16, the 12th anniversary of the Soweto student uprising (now commonly known as South African Youth Day) as several million black workers again defied the regime by staying away from work in honor of the hundred of blacks killed following the 1976 protests against apartheid education.

“No TEBA …Forget TEBA”: The Plight of Malawian Ex-migrant Workers to South Africa, 1988–1994

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-654 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wiseman Chijere Chirwa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Rural Communities ◽  
South African ◽  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Labor Migration ◽  
Rural Economy ◽  
Survival Strategies ◽  
The South ◽  
Entrepreneurial Skills ◽  
Socioeconomic Transformation

This article is about the process of socioeconomic transformation in rural Malawi. It examines the survival strategies and enterprising spirit of Malawian migrant workers and their households. It argues that the strategies of these people often went beyond survival in the provision of basic necessities. Those who had the economic drive and entrepreneurial skills were able to use the proceeds of labor migration to improve their own and their households’ socioeconomic life. In March 1988, the South African Chamber of Mines stopped a century-old tradition of recruiting migrant workers from Malawi. This has arrested and put to a halt a process of accumulation taking place in the households of the returned migrant workers in the rural economy. Thus, the effects of the retrenchment of the workers will spread from the migrant and his family through the economic and social wellspring of all sectors of rural communities and their commercial lives.

scholarly journals Enlightened state versus millenarian vision: A comparison between two historical novels

Literator ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Roelofse-Campbell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Latin American ◽  
The Other ◽  
Narrative Fiction ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
The World ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Ruling Elites ◽  
Historical Truth

Two millenarian events, one in Brazil (Canudos Rebellion, 1897) and the other in South Africa (Bulhoek Massacre, 1921) have inspired two works of narrative fiction: Mario Vargas Llosa's The War of the End of the World (1981) and Mike Nicol’s This Day and Age (1992). In both novels the events are presented from the perspectives of both the oppressed landless peasants and the oppressors, who were the ruling élites. In both instances, governments which purported to be models of enlightenment and modernity resorted to violence and repression in order to uphold their authority. Vargas Llosa's novel was written in the Latin American tradition where truth and fiction mingle indistinguishably while in the South African novel fictional elements override historical truth.

An Analysis of the State’s Obligation to Provide Access to Sufficient Water: A South African Perspective

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Desan Iyer ◽  
Dev Datt Tewari
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Economic Rights ◽  
Running Water ◽  
Contentious Issue ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
The World ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
Progressive Policy ◽  
South African Constitution

Abstract Many people in Africa, and around the world, do not have access to pipe or running water despite efforts being made to actualise socio-economic rights. South Africa is no different. The advent of the South African Constitution, as well as a strong commitment to advancing social and economic rights and values, has seen post-apartheid reforms in South Africa as well as an evolving water framework being confronted with new binary challenges. The era of social change has consequently underscored the need for an urgent redress of incongruences that still exist in respect of access to sufficient water. Despite South Africa adopting progressive policy frameworks for water in recent times, stark inequalities between communities in respect of access to sufficient water remain a contentious issue. The article will seek to analyse the developmental mandate of local government’s responsibilities in respect of safeguarding and giving effect to a key socio-economic right in South Africa.

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