The Expropriation Act 13 of 20241, signed into law by President Ramaphosa on 23rd January, is either “a dangerous step towards the erosion of property rights, which will have dire economic consequences”2 or “a legislative cop-out by the African National Congress (ANC) [that] will not assist in resolving the tragedy of land restitution in this […]
In a recent report2 to the Portfolio Committee on BP 616 Foreign Nationals & Prison Overcrowding- The Gordian Knot… by Peter-John Pearson finalCorrectional Services, later discussed at a press conference, it was noted that as at the end of March 2024, South African prisons were suffering from considerable overcrowding. The report stated that Correctional Services […]
Recently the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC)2 published a Discussion Paper and called for comments on the Domestication of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD).3 South Africa became a signatory to the CRPD and its Optional Protocol on 30th November 2007. BP 615 Domestication of the UN Convention on […]
As 2025 unfolds a sense of ‘new beginnings’ underlines all of our realities. It has a special impact for the mobile communities as other nationals return to or seek entry into South Africa to explore opportunities as a new work year begins, or children of foreign nationals seek access to educational institutions. A new year […]
2024 has been a bumper year for elections, with people in a number of heavyweight democracies going to the polls: Indonesia, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, the USA, Mexico, Pakistan, and the world’s largest democracy, India. Southern African has also had a larger than usual number of elections, with South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Mauritius, the […]
Over the first few weeks of November 2024, two topics have dominated the local news. Both have quickly become lightning rods for a fresh outpouring of xenophobic activity. Firstly, the horrific spike in deaths and severe illness, especially amongst children, due to eating toxic foods sold mostly by spaza shops. BP 614 Scapegoating – The […]
The fifth, and what was hoped to be the final, meeting of 175 countries (the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee Five for a Global Plastics Treaty) seeking to produce the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, ended on 1st December without the hoped-for agreement. Negotiations will resume in 2025, and it was accepted that the ‘Chairperson’s […]
2024 has been marked by several spikes in anti-immigrant sentiment, political posturing, scapegoating, and the ongoing practice at several levels of the politics of exclusion. The elections in May gave political parties the opportunity to canvass around anti-migrant rhetoric. In some campaigns it was ramped up dangerously and gave an excuse for xenophobic activity. Refugee […]
It is certainly not surprising that the different parties in the Government of National Unity have failed to reach consensus on some major policy positions. The coalition is only a few months old, and some of the areas of disagreement are deep-seated and almost defining of the parties concerned. Democracy Digest 13 Problems with Policy […]
In February 2023, the electricity crisis in South Africa was declared a national state of disaster so as to address the economic impact caused by the severe levels of loadshedding. Although this declaration has since been terminated, procuring reliable energy sources has remained crucial to achieve long-term energy security. BP 613 South Africa’s Nuclear Energy […]
