DOCSLIB.ORG

South African Judicial Education Journal

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
South African Judicial Education Journal 6,4mm SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL EDUCATION JOURNAL SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL EDUCATION SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL EDUCATION JOURNAL VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, 2018 VOLUME 1, ISSUE 2018 SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL EDUCATION JOURNAL VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1, 2018 SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 1 2018/04/11 12:36 PM This journal is published under the auspices of the South African Judicial Education Institute. Published: April 2018 ISSN: 2616-7999 © South African Judicial Education Institute Office of the Chief Justice, 188 14th Road, Noordwyk, Midrand, 1687 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. In terms of the Copyright Act, No. 98 of 1978, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the SAJEI. SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 2 2018/05/02 9:06 AM CONTENTS ARTICLES SAJEI: A vehicle for the speedy delivery of quality justice to all our people by Mogoeng Mogoeng................................................................................... 1 Judicial training and the role of judges in a constitutional democracy by Heinz Klug ................................................................................................. 11 Judicial education in a transformative context by DM Davis ................................ 25 To give and to gain: Judicial involvement in advocacy training by OL Rogers ..... 31 Judicial social context education in South Africa by N Dambuza ........................ 39 Judging according to personal attributes, outlook on life and life experience: Any practical value? by Mbuyiseli R Madlanga .............................................. 48 Political parties: The missing link in our Constitution? by Kate O’Regan ............. 61 The rule of law: The role of the judiciary and legal practitioners by Frank Kroon .............................................................................................. 81 A dead horse need not be flogged: The duty not to pursue unmeritorious causes by SM Mbenenge ............................................................................. 89 Do we need deference? by Malcom Wallis .......................................................... 97 SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 3 2018/04/11 12:36 PM SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 4 2018/04/11 12:36 PM 188 14th Road, Noordwyk, Midrand, 1687 Private Bag X10, Marshalltown, 2000 The South African Judicial Education Journal is published by the South African Judicial Education Institute (SAJEI), Office of the Chief Justice. The mandate of SAJEI is to provide judicial education to aspiring and serving Judicial officers in order to enhance judicial accountability and transformation of the Judiciary. The Journal is intended to consist of contributions, articles, case notes and book reviews. The views expressed by the authors or contributors do not reflect the views of SAJEI and Editorial Board. The Editorial Board invites unsolicited articles on topical issues relating to judicial education and the Judiciary. The Editorial Board reserves the right to edit articles and circulate for double blind peer review. Request for PDF electronic copy should be sent to [email protected]. Currently, the journal is not for sale. SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 5 2018/04/11 12:36 PM SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 6 2018/04/11 12:36 PM MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION GUIDELINES The Editorial Board welcomes original manuscript submission written in English. The articles should be on topical issues relating to Judicial education and the Judiciary that are between 3000 and 5000 words in length including footnotes. The format of the article should be 1.5 spacing, font Arial 11, justify and in MS Word. All submissions should be made online to [email protected]. za. Articles must be original in content. Any idea or quotation from another source must be fully acknowledged. All articles will be checked for originality through the use of a software. Details of the author/s: title, name, institutional affiliation, email address, postal address and telephone number should be included. Prospective author/s are requested to read Notes for Author/s and Contributors found in http://www.judiciary.org.za/, open link to SAJEI. SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 7 2018/04/11 12:36 PM SAJEI Vol 1_Issue 1 (8pp).indd 8 2018/04/11 12:36 PM EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-chief Mbuyiseli R Madlanga, Justice of the Constitutional Court Managing editor Cagney Musi, Deputy Judge President, Free State Division of the High Court of South Africa Production editor Dr Azwinndini C Tshivhase, Director: Curriculum Development & E-Learning (South African Judicial Education Institute) Tanya Golden SC, Member of the Cape and Johannesburg Bars Mpopelele Bruce Langa, Regional Court President, Western Cape Tati Makgoka, Judge of the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Letlhokwa George Mpedi, Professor of Law and Executive Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Johannesburg Mohammed Randera, Attorney of the High Court, Republic of South Africa Managay Reddi, Professor of Law and Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal Gerhard van Rooyen, Magistrate, Emlazi ADVISORY PANEL C ALBERTYN, Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand PE ANDREWS, Professor of Law, University of Cape Town E CAMERON, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa A GOVINDJEE, Professor of Law, Nelson Mandela University R KRUGER, Professor of Law, Rhodes University A LANSINK, Professor of Law, University of Venda N LUBISI (Dr), Dean of Law, University of Fort Hare SM MBENENGE, Judge President, Eastern Cape Division of the High Court MB MOLEMELA, Judge President, Free State Division of the High Court CMA NICHOLSON, Professor of Law, University of the Free State N NTLAMA, Professor of Law, University of Fort Hare CME O’REGAN, Retired Justice of the Constitutional Court OL ROGERS, Judge of the High Court, Western Cape Division OS SIBANDA, Professor of Law, University of South Africa SAJEJ Vol 1_Issue 1.indb 1 2018/03/09 10:19 AM SAJEJ Vol 1_Issue 1.indb 2 2018/03/09 10:19 AM THE SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL VOLUME 1 EDUCATION ISSUE 1 2018 JOURNAL SAJEI: A VEHICLE FOR THE SPEEDY DELIVERY OF QUALITY JUSTICE TO ALL OUR PEOPLE MOGOENG MOGOENG Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa I INTRODUCTION The vision of the South African judiciary is the speedy delivery of quality justice to all our people, rich and poor. This assumes that the South African judiciary administers justice with the independence required of it by the Constitution. And that assumption extends to a comfortable grasp, by judicial officers, of constitutional and legal concepts and a commitment to uphold acceptable professional and ethical standards. A well-developed judgment-writing skill is also an essential for the efficient and effective functioning of this justice- dispensing machinery. Also crucial is a properly adapted case-management system bench-marked on those that are known to have enhanced court- performance immensely in the best performing jurisdictions around the world. Coming from an era where a substandard teaching of law to most of us was as institutionalised as the frustration of the effective development of some practitioners’ forensic skills, the imperatives of judicial transformation demand that education and training be offered to South African judges and magistrates much more than is the case in many western jurisdictions. And that explains why the establishment of the South African Judicial Education Institute (SAJEI) was an absolute necessity. 1 SAJEJ Vol 1_Issue 1.indb 1 2018/03/09 10:19 AM 2 (2018) 1 (1) SOUTH AFRICAN JUDICIAL EDUCATION JOURNAL II THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SAJEI When I became a High Court judge a little over twenty years ago, judicial education was offered through a somewhat loose arrangement. Judges did not have a judicial academy. The Canadian government provided funding that enabled our judiciary to provide training for aspirant, newly appointed and long-serving judges. In anticipation of the drying up of this fixed- term funding, negotiations commenced in earnest between the judiciary and the executive about the establishment of a statutory and state-funded training institute for judges and magistrates. It is that collaborative exercise that gave birth to the South African Judicial Education Institute. This was meant to also end the undesirable practice of magistrates being trained under the auspices of Justice College which was and is still run by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development. The need for the judiciary to handle all its educational responsibilities became apparent to all arms of the state. This necessity is foreshadowed in s 180(a) of the Constitution, which provides: National legislation may provide for any matter concerning the administration of justice that is not dealt with in the Constitution including— (a) Training programmes for judicial officers. And the Act envisaged in this section is the South African Judicial Education Institute Act1 (the Act). III THE PURPOSE Both the Act’s long title and preamble capture the essence of what is sought to be achieved through the establishment of the Institute. They do so crisply, admirably and almost completely. The long title records the purpose as being: To establish a South African Judicial Education Institute in order to promote the independence, impartiality, dignity, accessibility and effectiveness of the courts by providing judicial education for judicial
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Appointments to South Africa's Constitutional Court Since 1994
    Durham Research Online Deposited in DRO: 15 July 2015 Version of attached le: Accepted Version Peer-review status of attached le: Peer-reviewed Citation for published item: Johnson, Rachel E. (2014) 'Women as a sign of the new? Appointments to the South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994.', Politics gender., 10 (4). pp. 595-621. Further information on publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X14000439 Publisher's copyright statement: c Copyright The Women and Politics Research Section of the American 2014. This paper has been published in a revised form, subsequent to editorial input by Cambridge University Press in 'Politics gender' (10: 4 (2014) 595-621) http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=PAG Additional information: Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Durham University Library, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LY, United Kingdom Tel : +44 (0)191 334 3042 | Fax : +44 (0)191 334 2971 https://dro.dur.ac.uk Rachel E. Johnson, Politics & Gender, Vol. 10, Issue 4 (2014), pp 595-621. Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa’s Constitutional Court since 1994.
    [Show full text]
  • South African Artists at the Constitutional Court of South Africa
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Decoding Memories: South African Artists at the Constitutional Court of South Africa A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in African Studies by Mary Ann Braubach 2017 © Copyright by Mary Ann Braubach 2017 ABSTRACT OF THESIS Decoding Memories: South African Artists at the Constitutional Court of South Africa by Mary Ann Braubach Master of Arts in African Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2017 Professor William H. Worger, Chair This paper examines the decoding of the memory of apartheid and post apartheid years of South Africa’s recent history. And it contextualizes how the struggle influenced the visual arts. Also analyzed are the history of the Constitution and Constitutional Court of South Africa. It interrogates the formation of the Constitutional Court art collection. by Justices Albie Sachs and Yvonne Mokgoro for the yet-to-be-constructed Constitutional Court building in Johannesburg. Many donated artworks are responsive both to the anti- apartheid struggles and also to the new democracy. The essay also examines the underlying politic that now hangs in the Constitutional Court building. Select works, that function as signifiers of the new Constitution, are examined. I draw on interviews with South African artists, Court Justices and curators to investigate the role of memory, the archeology of the site, and the significance of the collection to the artists, the Justices, and citizens of South Africans twenty years post apartheid.
    [Show full text]
  • Download 2014 Annual Report
    Faculty of Law 2014 Centre for ANNUAL Faculty of Law Human Rights REPORT 2 The Centre for Human Rights, based at the Faculty of Law, CONTENTS University of Pretoria, is both an academic department and a non- DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE 4 governmental organisation. ACADEMIC PROGRAMMES 6 The Centre was established in the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, in 1986, as part of domestic efforts against the apartheid system of the time. RESEARCH 8 The Centre for Human Rights works towards human rights education in Africa, a greater awareness of human rights, the wide dissemination of publications on human rights in Africa, and the improvement of the PROJECTS 10 rights of women, people living with HIV, indigenous peoples, sexual minorities and other disadvantaged or marginalised persons or groups across the continent. PUBLICATIONS 31 Over the years, the Centre has positioned itself in an unmatched network of practising and academic lawyers, national and international civil servants and human rights practitioners across the entire continent, with a CENTRE PERSONNEL 33 specific focus on human rights law in Africa, and international development law in general. Today, a wide network of Centre alumni contribute in numerous ways to the advancement and strengthening STAFF ACTIVITES 36 of human rights and democracy all over the Africa continent, and even further afield. FUNDING 40 In 2006, the Centre for Human Rights was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education, with particular recognition for the African Human Rights Moot Court Competition and the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa. In 2012, the Centre for Human Rights was awarded the 2012 African Union Human Rights Prize.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Transcript Johann Kriegler Interview with Johann Kriegler, 2 February
    Interview with Johann Kriegler, 2 February 2016, Johannesburg (based on notes) Interaction with Mandela around the 1994 elections TT What interaction did you have with Nelson Mandela in the context of the 1994 elections? JK My first contact with Mandela was a phone call fairly early on encouraging me in the work of administering the election, saying that he and the party realised that there were difficulties, and I should know that I had the support of the party and its confidence. Mandela would call personally, unlike the usual CEO, whose PA calls you to say the CEO would like to speak to you and then you wait for the CEO. My first face-to-face meeting with Mandela was at a full meeting of the TEC [Transitional Executive Council] presided over by De Klerk four to five weeks before the election. It was a general TEC meeting with reports from various sub- councils. In mid-April there was a TEC meeting at which Mandela was present where I reported on a meeting with the IFP. There was at one point talk of a boycott of the elections by the ZCC [Zion Christian Church]. At that time there were several threats of boycott: IFP, Bophuthatswana, Ciskei, and the right wing. I went to meet with Bishop Lekganyane to persuade him to support the process, before Easter. He said that he had invited the leaders of all parties to attend the Easter celebration at Moria to set the right tone for the election, which seemed to imply that he would be encouraging participation At the Easter meeting I sat in the church next to Mandela for two hours.
    [Show full text]
  • Top Court Trims Executive Power Over Hawks
    Legalbrief | your legal news hub Sunday 26 September 2021 Top court trims executive power over Hawks The Constitutional Court has not only agreed that legislation governing the Hawks does not provide adequate independence for the corruption-busting unit, it has 'deleted' the defective sections, notes Legalbrief. It found parts of the legislation that governs the specialist corruption-busting body unconstitutional, because they did not sufficiently insulate it from potential executive interference. This, notes a Business Day report, is the second time the court has found the legislation governing the Hawks, which replaced the Scorpions, unconstitutional for not being independent enough. The first time, the court sent it back to Parliament to fix. This time the court did the fixing, by cutting out the offending words and sections. The report says the idea behind the surgery on the South African Police Service (SAPS) Act was to ensure it had sufficient structural and operational independence, a constitutional requirement. In a majority judgment, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said: 'Our anti-corruption agency is not required to be absolutely independent. It, however, has to be adequately independent. 'And that must be evidenced by both its structural and operational autonomy.' The judgment resolved two cases initially brought separately - one by businessman Hugh Glenister, the other by the Helen Suzman Foundation (HSF), notes Business Day. Because both cases challenged the Hawks legislation on the grounds of independence, the two were joined. Glenister's case - that the Hawks could never be independent while located in the SAPS, which was rife with corruption - was rejected by the court.
    [Show full text]
  • K Malan REASSESSING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE and IMPARTIALITY AGAINST the BACKDROP of JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS in SOUTH AFRICA
    Author: K Malan REASSESSING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AND IMPARTIALITY AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA ISSN 1727 -3781 2014 VOLUME 17 No 5 http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/pelj.v17i5.05 K MALAN PER / PELJ 2014(17)5 REASSESSING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE AND IMPARTIALITY AGAINST THE BACKDROP OF JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS IN SOUTH AFRICA K Malan 1 Introduction Two decades ago, in 1994, South Africa formalised the first stride of its constitutional transition when the Interim Constitution1 came into force. Two years later the Interim Constitution was replaced by the so-called final Constitution, which came into force in February 1997 and is often praised as one of the best constitutions in the world. The Constitution is the supreme law of the country and provides for a strikingly wide purview of judicial review,2 probably an important reason why it is held in such high esteem.3 The courts in South Africa are assigned powers to review and to declare administrative and executive conduct, as well as legislation, in all spheres of government, unconstitutional and invalid. Such extensive powers should make them more powerful than the judiciaries in most other jurisdictions. The Constitutional Court is the apex court in relation to all constitutional matters and in a number of constitutional issues it exercises exclusive jurisdiction. It may also exercise appeal jurisdiction in relation to matters not constitutional in nature on the grounds that a matter raises an arguable point of law of general public importance. Except for this particular power, the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) is the highest court in all matters not of a constitutional nature and also has sweeping jurisdiction in constitutional matters, with a few exceptions which fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court.
    [Show full text]
  • Application to the Tribunal
    Application to the Tribunal And as replacement to 2015.010.21 Application UZA with ITNJ General Jurisdiction: Republic of South Africa Court of origin (where appropriate): Constitutional Court of South Africa; Appeal number (where appropriate): Date of filing: 23rd of October 2015 ITNJ File No: 2015.01 - UZA Constitutional Court Case Number: CCT 200/15 Agents Applicant’s agents: court of record: representative real action of we, the people; Unified Common-law Grand Jury of Southern Africa, hereinafter UZA or uza Respondent’s agents: The National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa 1. Details of the applicant Applicant’s full name: Unified Common Law Grand Jury of Southern Africa Original status: Claimant Defendant Intervener ITNJ Form 1 – Application to the Tribunal Page 1 of 21 Petitioner Respondent Agent (if applicable) Name: administrator: brother-thomas-graham:carlsson-rudman prosecutor : miss t bailiwick : jan:lohfeldt Address: Telephone: skype: commonlawsa1 c/o Unified Grand Jury ZA Fax no: ------- P.O. Box 166 DX no: ------- Laezonia Ref: Pretoria Concourt: CCT: 200/15 South Africa, ZA ITNJ: 15.10.23 UZA: 2013/06/S11 Postcode: n/a (jurisdiction) Email: [email protected] and [email protected] and [email protected] How would you prefer us to communicate with you? Via email thank you; Counsel (if applicable) Name: miss t (attorney at law) attorney in fact in this case Address: s/a/a Telephone no: Fax no: Postcode: DX no: Ref: Email: [email protected] How would you prefer us to communicate with you? Email ITNJ Form 1 – Application to the Tribunal Page 2 of 21 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Lack of Transformation in Judiciary Investigative Report (2016) By
    CGE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:Layout 1 12/5/16 5:53 PM Page 1 LACK OF GENDER TRANSFORMATION IN THE JUDICIARY INVESTIGATIVE REPORT 2016 CGE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:Layout 1 12/5/16 5:53 PM Page 2 CGE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:Layout 1 12/5/16 5:53 PM Page 3 LACK OF GENDER TRANSFORMATION IN THE JUDICIARY Complaint Ref No: WC/DRGU & Sonke/2012/KL Democratic Governance and Rights Unit and Sonke Gender Justice Network Complainants And The Presidency The Minister of the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development Judicial Service Commission Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court Respondents1 “There’s a lot of sexism. If you are a woman you have to go on a course to become a judge, but a man can simply serve as an acting judge and apply for the job. Men have thought of this [course] as a marvellous thing. They think this is helping women become judges. They are incredibly proud of their expensive courses2. Judge Satchwell 1 As per the lodged complaint 2 Omphitlhetse , Mooki , The Star Newspaper , August 2012: “ Women can do it too” 3 CGE INVESTIGATIVE REPORT:Layout 1 12/5/16 5:53 PM Page 4 LACK OF GENDER TRANSFORMATION IN THE JUDICIARY CONTENTS PAGES 1. Introduction 6 2. Parties 7 3. Nature and Background to the Complaint 10 4. Legal Framework 12 5. Gender Transformation in the Judiciary – the current status quo (institutional analysis) 28 6. Investigation / Steps taken 33 7. Findings and recommendations 58 8. Conclusion 61 9. Annexures A1 The Presidency of the Republic of South Africa 64 A2 Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development 68
    [Show full text]
  • Courage, Integrity and Independence Edwin Cameron's
    COURAGE, INTEGRITY AND INDEPENDENCE EDWIN CAMERON’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE LAW Justice Edwin Cameron will retire from the Constitutional Court in August 2019. This is a speech delivered on 1 November 2014 by Gilbert Marcus SC on the occasion of the grant of honorary membership by the Johannesburg Bar. have known Justice Edwin Cameron for more than 35 years. Edwin, among this illustrious group, has featured in a televi- I We met when he was one of my lecturers at university and we sion advertisement, and, moreover, in full judicial garb. Edwin’s have been friends ever since. We did pupillage at the same time, achievements and accolades are many and it is not my purpose he with Michael Kuper, I with Denis Kuny, and we were col- to catalogue them. They are generally well known. Sometimes, leagues at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies for a number of however, he is credited with things that never happened. For years. I know that he detests pomposity and pretention and that example, it was reported in the press that Edwin had officiated he welcomes candour. In that spirit, I propose to dispense with at a wedding ceremony “complete with glitter eye make-up”. the formalities of address and refer to Edwin by his name. In a letter to the Sunday Times Edwin wrote that the description This is only the sixth occasion on which the Johannesburg was “a flattering but regrettably erroneous exaggeration”.1 Bar has conferred honorary membership on one of its members. There are many other reasons why Edwin is different and Those who have preceded Edwin were all giants in their own which have significantly come to characterise the extraordinary right (although Edwin is by far the tallest, physically at any contribution he has made to the law.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 1 Making the Road.Fm
    INTRODUCTION HAPTER C 1 Michael Cosser, Narnia Bohler-Muller & Gary Pienaar 1Introduction 1.1 Making the road by walking The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, the final draft of which was forged over a two-year period between 1994 and 1996, assumed a particular profile in the body politic in 2016. Following the release of the Public Protector’s 2014 report on improvements to President Zuma’s Nkandla residence,1 the Constitutional Court in March 2016 declared binding her findings and recommendations about the need for the President to repay public monies spent on non-security upgrades to his residence.2 Such high-profile cases, however, can distract us from the importance of the Constitution in shaping the lives of ordinary people. In catapulting the Constitution into the limelight, the ‘Nkandla judgement’, as it is known colloquially, has created renewed interest in what meaning the Constitution has for South Africans in 2018 and beyond. The initial impetus for this book came from a public address by former Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo. Delivered on 30 June 2016 and entitled ‘Why does the Constitution matter?’, his address began with an almost throwaway comment: that he was ‘privileged enough … to participate in constructing our foundational jurisprudence on constitutional law.’3 Ngcobo went on to say that the process of building a constitutional 1 Public Protector South Africa ‘Secure in comfort’ http://www.pprotect.org/library/ investigation_report/2013-14/Final Report 19 March 2014 pdf (accessed 23 May 2017). 2 Economic Freedom Fighters v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others 2016 (3) SA 580 (CC).
    [Show full text]
  • Seven Priorities to Drive the National Development Plan – President Ramaphosa
    Oath of office 7 6 reminds MPs 8 Smaller parties of their duty to all NA and NCOP promise tough South Africans, will put the oversight in says Chief Justice people first 6th Parliament Mogoeng Vol. 01 Official Newspaper of the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa Issue 03 2019 The Speaker of the NA, Ms Thandi Modise (left), President Cyril Ramaphosa, the first lady Tshepo Motsepe and the Chairperson of the NCOP, Mr Amos Masondo (far right) on the steps of the NA. Seven priorities to drive the National Development Plan – President Ramaphosa President Cyril social cohesion and safe of the national effort, to make communities, a capable, ethical it alive, to make it part of the Ramaphosa told and developmental state, a lived experience of the South the nation that his better Africa and world. African people. government will focus on seven priorities, He said all the government “As South Africa enters the programmes and policies next 25 years of democracy, writes Zizipho Klaas. across all departments and and in pursuit of the objectives agencies will be directed in of the NDP, let us proclaim a The priorities are, economic pursuit of these overarching bold and ambitious goal, a transformation and job tasks. unifying purpose, to which we creation, education, skills and dedicate all our resources and health, consolidating the social At the same time, President energies,” he stressed. wage through reliable and Ramaphosa said the quality basic services, spatial government must restore the Within the priorities of this integration, human settlements National Development Plan administration, President and local government, (NDP) to its place at the centre Ramaphosa said 2 The Khoisan praise singer praises President Ramaphosa.
    [Show full text]
  • Organizing the First Post-Apartheid Election: South Africa, 1994
    Amy Mawson Innovations for Successful Societies ORGANIZING THE FIRST POST-APARTHEID ELECTION: SOUTH AFRICA, 1994 SYNOPSIS South Africa’s Independent Electoral Commission faced a daunting task in January 1994. The newly established body had less than four months to organize and implement the country’s first fully inclusive democratic elections. The stakes were high. A successful vote would signal a new beginning for the nation after the apartheid era. Failure could mean civil war. Choosing suitable polling sites, dealing with parties’ distrust, reaching alienated and possibly hostile communities, addressing potential spoiler issues and remedying shortages of electoral materials posed formidable challenges. The commission’s difficulties snowballed. In the end, however, all parties accepted the election results and the Government of National Unity went ahead as planned. The elections offer an example of how an electoral commission can sustain political will—of parties and the public—to overcome administrative shortcomings in extremely sensitive circumstances. The case study discusses location of polling stations, temporary polling facilities, candidate access, ballots and ballot counting. Amy Mawson drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa, in February 2010. INTRODUCTION government and policy. In the 1980s, increasing Sitting on the terrace of his home in domestic and international pressure, combined Johannesburg in February 2010, 77-year-old with private diplomacy, ushered in the Johann Kriegler, who led South Africa’s beginnings of change. In February 1990, Independent Electoral Commission in 1994, President F.W. de Klerk, leader of the minority reflected on the busy months of that year.
    [Show full text]