Justice In South Africa Research Articles

A Critical Investigation of the Relevance and Potential of IDPs as a Local Governance Instrument for Pursuing Social Justice in South Africa

Unlike the situation in the past, when local government’s role was limited to service delivery, local government is now constitutionally mandated to play an expanded developmental role. As a “co-responsible” sphere of government, local government is obliged to contribute towards realising the transformative constitutional mandate aimed at social justice. South African scholars and jurists share the view that social justice is primarily concerned with the eradication of poverty and extreme inequalities in access to basic services, and aims to ensure that poor people command sufficient material resources to facilitate their equal participation in socio-political life. In order to enable municipalities to fulfil their broad constitutional mandate, the system of integrated development planning (IDPs) came into effect in South Africa in 2000. Each municipality is obliged to design, adopt and implement an integrated development plan in order to achieve its expanded constitutional mandate. The IDP is considered to be the chief legally prescribed governance instrument for South African municipalities.The purpose of this article is to explore and critically investigate the relevance and potential of IDPs in contributing towards the achievement of social justice in South Africa. This article argues inter alia that the multitude of sectors that converge in an IDP makes it directly relevant and gives it enormous potential to contribute towards social justice because, depending on the context, municipalities could include and implement strategies that specifically respond to diverse areas of human need. In this regard, the legal and policy frameworks for IDPs provide a structured scheme that could be used by municipalities to prioritise and meet the basic needs of especially the poor. Despite its potential, it is argued that the ability of IDPs to respond to the basic needs of the poor is largely constrained by a series of implementation challenges partly attributed to the underlying legal and policy framework.Keywords: Transformative constitutionalism; Social justice; Local government, IDPs.

The Role of University of South Africa in Contributing to Open Distance and E-Learning and to Social Justice in South Africa

Social justice in higher education would imply equal opportunity to access, participate and benefit from higher education. This simply means removal of barriers and inclusion of all those who have traditionally been excluded either by history, perceptions or structures. Because of its flexibility of programmes and forms of delivery, open and distance learning (ODL) has been acknowledged to have greater potential for reducing these barriers. However, to date, especially in developing societies, there are still a great number of people who are missing out on higher education. In this paper, the researcher looks at the role of University of South Africa (Unisa) in contributing to ODL and e-learning in South Africa and beyond. A large amount of the country’s budget is spent on education. According to the constitution of South Africa, education is the basic right for everyone. The ministry of education in South Africa has identified ODL as a system that should expand the educational opportunities and provide access to individuals who would not have had the opportunity to study full time. The researcher randomly sampled 400 students from the total number of 1808 enrolled in the Higher Diploma in Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET). They were targeted to participate in the survey to ensure the best possible representation of their experiences of learner support in ABET. The response rate was 257 questionnaire returned by the students. However, while the findings represent the views and experiences of the target population, they cannot claim to be representative of the views and experiences of all ABET and Unisa students. A review of literature study identified the Community of Inquiry model proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2001) as useful in this context and this model will be used as the conceptual framework for this study. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n3p376

Remembering the role of the Reformed Churches in the struggle for justice in South Africa (1960-1990): some remarks on the promise and pitfalls of memory and historiography

The period 1960-1990 represents a dramatic – and also traumatic – period in South African church and theological history. The story of the Reformed churches during this period is inextricably interwoven with the theological support of the ideology of apartheid as well as the story of the theological struggle against the injustices of apartheid. With this in mind this essay addresses the question: “How should we remember the role of the Reformed churches in South Africa in the struggle for justice between 1960 and 1990?” The essay attends to various aspects of this question, offering some clarification and qualification in the process. The article argues, in addition, that an engagement with the role of the Reformed churches in South Africa in the struggle for justice requires an awareness of the promise as well as the pitfalls associated with the attempt to remember and to represent the past.

Reformed Churches struggle for justice: Lessons learnt from their submissions before the TRC

The truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) arranged a special hearing for all faith communities in relation to their contribution to human rights violations under apartheid. This forced different faith groupings and Christian denominations to recollect their role in the struggle for justice in South Africa. two prominent Reformed Churches made submissions to the TRC on how they have dealt with the history of apartheid in relation to the struggle for justice. Their submissions were made up of different themes as they reflected on their role in the struggle for justice within South Africa’s apartheid’s past (within the time frame 1960 to 1990). This contribution aims to highlight and discuss some of the most prominent themes in the struggle for justice from the two Reformed Churches as they reflected on the apartheid past and to identify some lessons from among these themes that the church community can use in order to empower the church to redeem the past and contribute to healing and reconciliation in the present and future.

Dealing with interwoven memories and histories: some perspectives in conversation with William Kentridge’s "History of the Main Complaint"

The article discusses the notion of memory and history as interwoven phenomena. It was originally presented towards the end of a conference on “The Reformed Churches and the struggle for Justice in South Africa: Remembering 1960-1990.” The article highlights certain characteristics of the project in order to situate it within a broader project of memory-work. It then continues to discuss an artwork of William Kentridge, History of the Main Complaint , to illuminate various levels on which memory and history as interwoven phenomena might be understood. Finally, memory and history are discussed as being interwoven phenomena with regards to its crushing or curing abilities, temporality, topics it deals with, and those who remember.

A fair share? Perceptions of justice in South Africa’s water allocation reform policy

This paper examines the multiple meanings of justice embedded in the notion of environmental justice. It uses research on South Africa’s Water Allocation Reform policy to explore how ideas of justice have shifted in the course of crafting the policy, employing the notion of ‘allocation discourses’ to capture the changing conceptions of justice. South Africa’s reform efforts are part of a global trend that vests the ultimate authority over water resources with the State, which provides it with a large degree of discretion in allocating use rights to resources. Drawing on discourse analysis and interviews with key stakeholders, the paper demonstrates how the early versions of the policy were characterised by desert-oriented and utilitarian interpretations of justice, which then shifted to an explicitly egalitarian perspective in the final version, but which, to-date, has had little practical consequence, however. In the early versions, existing users were portrayed as unilaterally beneficial and productive, and the process of redistribution as a risky venture that could lead to environmental degradation and the economy being undermined, whilst failing to acknowledge the waste and pollution of existing users. The paper highlights the importance of unpacking key concepts and understanding how particular framings of human-nature relations influence ideas of justice, and how these may shift over time.

‘One Man Can’: shifts in fatherhood beliefs and parenting practices following a gender-transformative programme in Eastern Cape, South Africa

‘One Man Can’ (OMC) is a rights-based gender equality and health programme implemented by Sonke Gender Justice in South Africa. It has been featured as an example of best practice by the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the UN Population Fund, and translated into nearly a dozen languages and implemented all across Africa. South Africa has strong gender and HIV-related policies, but the highest documented level of men's violence against women in the world, and the largest number of people living with HIV. In this context, OMC seeks to improve men's relationships with their partners, children, and families, reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS, and reduce violence against women, men, and children. To understand whether and how OMC workshops brought about changes in men's attitudes and practices related to parenting, an academic–non-government organisation partnership was carried out with the University of California at San Francisco, the University of Cape Town, and Sonke. The workshops appear to have contributed powerfully to improved parenting and more involved and responsible fathering. This article shares our findings in more detail and discusses the promises and challenges of gender-transformative work with men, underscoring the implications of this work for the health and well-being of women, children, and men.

African-Style Mediation and Western-Style Divorce and Family Mediation: Reflections for the South African Context

Both Western-styled mediation and African-styled mediation are practised in South Africa. Each of these models is applied in specific social contexts. In this article a brief explanation of what is meant by the term divorce and family mediation is provided. Thereafter the principles and processes of both Western-styled divorce and family mediation and African-styled group mediation are explored. Attention is given to the roles of mediators in both of these models as well as the ubuntu-styled values found in African group mediation. In Africa, there is a tradition of family neighbourhood negotiation facilitated by elders and an attitude of togetherness in the spirit of humanhood. Both of these show a commitment to the community concerned and a comprehensive view of life. In Africa conflicts are viewed as non-isolated events and are viewed in their social contexts. Not only are consequences for the disputing parties taken into account but also consequences for others in their families. These methods can be found in present-day methods, which are either used independently of imported Western structures or used alternatively to such structures. In this article the concept of mediation circles, as currently found in Western-styled mediation are also covered. Additionally, the provisions of the Children’s Act 38 of 2005 referring to mediation as well as the provisions of the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008 and family group conferencing in the realm of restorative justice in South Africa are critiqued. It is suggested that divorce and family mediation can learn from the principles of restorative justice applied during family group conferencing as well as from Africanstyled group mediation.KEYWORDS: Dispute resolution; family mediation; divorce mediation; African-styled mediation; Western-styled mediation law

Land Redistribution Law and Environmental Justice in South Africa: An Analysis of South Africa's Land Redistribution Law as a Means to Achieving Environmental Justice

South Africa’s transition to democracy was followed by an extensive programme of land reform whose major objectives were, inter alia, to eradicate injustices of racially based dispossessions; to promote a more equitable distribution of land ownership; to reduce poverty and to promote economic growth through land reform; to provide security of tenure for all and to establish a system of land management that will support sustainable land-use patterns and the rapid release of land for development. While all of these goals are important, one of the purposes of my thesis is to suggest that an effective programme of land reform, in general, and an effective programme of land redistribution, in particular, could also go a long way towards achieving another equally important goal, namely environmental justice. The achievement of this goal, it will be argued, is critical in light of a history of massive land dispossession during the colonial and apartheid eras. Such policies against black South Africans compelled them to bear a disproportionate share of the environmental hazards caused by undesirable land uses on account of their race, whilst simultaneously denying them equal access to natural resources, in general, and to land, in particular, for the same reasons. The fact that black South Africans were denied equal access to land on the basis of their race during the colonial and apartheid periods has had serious economic, environmental and social consequences for them. This is because the amount of land set aside for them during the colonial and apartheid periods was hopelessly inadequate. It simply could not support the enormous number of people forced to live in the homelands. Apart from being hopelessly inadequate, the areas set aside for black South Africans were also characterised by a lack of work opportunities. The lack of work opportunities meant that black South Africans were forced to rely on the land for their survival. The land did not, however, have the capacity to support so many people and large areas soon became environmentally degraded.The environmental degradation of the homelands led to widespread poverty. In order to survive, therefore, male family members were forced to relocate to the urban areas where job opportunities were available for unskilled labour. They were, however, not allowed to take their families with them and this lead to a breakdown in family structures. Apart from suggesting that a programme of land redistribution may go a long way towards achieving environmental justice, another, and possibly more important, purpose of this thesis is to argue that a land redistribution programme should be accompanied by a move away from the ownership orientated system of land rights that has traditionally applied in South Africa towards a more fragment use-rights orientated system of land rights.In other words, a new land rights law should promote limited use rights and the adoption of environmentally sustainable land use. By so doing, a fundamental land reform, it is argued, would go a long way towards promoting the land aspirations of contemporary South African society in an environmentally sustainable way. The two basic questions this work seeks to address, therefore, are, firstly whether a fundamental reform of the land rights law can possibly address environmental injustice in South Africa and secondly, whether the post-apartheid land rights law is sufficiently well equipped to guard against environmentally unsustainable land use that can recreate adverse and dangerous environmental burdens and hazards on land based livelihoods and rural communities.

Language and social justice in South Africa's higher education: insights from a South African university

The paper interrogates the issue of language and social justice in South Africa's higher education using quantitative and qualitative data collected at the University of the Free State (UFS). Data were collected using questionnaires. Through purposive sampling based on South African and UFS demographics, 120 questionnaires were administered to UFS students. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The results show that language is a critical component in the conceptualisation and actualisation of social justice in South Africa's higher education. The results further indicate that language continues to play the role of privileging access to higher education for some, while curtailing access to higher education for others, in South Africa. The paper concludes that this reality is contrary to the principles of social justice and recommends a radical overhaul of the language dispensation in South Africa's higher education within the framework of social justice.

Exploring the Textured Landscape of Water Insecurity and the Human Right to Water

he last decade has seen historic advances in the formal establishment of the human right to water and global agreements on development goals that target improved access to water and sanitation. How...

Land and Justice in South Africa: Exploring the Ambiguous Role of the State in the Land Claims Process

Abstract In addition to challenges facing South Africa’s overall post-apartheid land reform, group rural land claims have particularly proven difficult to resolve. This paper explores the role that the state plays in shaping the outcomes of rural group land claims. It analyzes policy statements, including from policy documents, guidelines and speeches made by politicians during ceremonies to hand over land rights to rural claimants; seeking to understand the possible motives, factual correctness, as well as impact, of these statements on the trajectory of the settled land claims. The paper concludes that land reform as practiced in South Africa is functionally and discursively disembedded from socio-political histories of dispossession, because land has come to be treated more as a commodity, rather than as something that represents multiple meanings for different segments of society. Like many processes leading up to a resolution of a rural claim, subsequent statements by government concerning particular ‘successful’ land claims convey an assumption that local claimants have received just redress; that there was local consensus on what form of land claim redress people wanted, and that the state’s lead role in suggesting commercial farming or tourism as land use options for the new land rights holders is welcome. The paper shows that previous in-depth research on rural land claims proves that the state’s role in the success or failure of rural land claims is controversial at best.

Constitutionalism and transitional justice in South Africa

Andrea Lollini's intellectual contribution...offers important and interesting points of departure on a plurality of issues and disciplines that are rooted in established academic culture but that may also anticipate the outcome of future research. * [From the Foreword] Over the last fifteen years, the South African postapartheid Transitional Amnesty Process - implemented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) - has been extensively analyzed by scholars and commentators from around the world and from almost every discipline of human sciences. Lawyers, historians, anthropologists and sociologists as well as political scientists have tried to understand, describe and comment on the 'shocking' South African political decision to give amnesty to all who fully disclosed their politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era. Investigating the postapartheid transition in South Africa from a multidisciplinary perspective involving constitutional law, criminal law, history and political science, this book explores the overlapping of the postapartheid constitution-making process and the Amnesty Process for political violence under apartheid and shows that both processes represent important innovations in terms of constitutional law and transitional justice systems. Both processes contain mechanisms that encourage the constitution of the unity of the political body while ensuring future solidity and stability. From this perspective, the book deals with the importance of several concepts such as truth about the past, publicly shared memory, unity of the political body and public confession.

"Just say sorry?" <i>Ubuntu</i>, Africanisation and the Child Justice System in the Child Justice Act 75 of 2008

In the midst of concerns about serious offenses committed by young people, the Child Justice Act is the first formal legislative step to introduce restorative justice in South Africa, and promotes reconciliation and problem solving as an approach to the criminal behavior of youth. This article analyses the new place of restorative justice and ubuntu in the Act through an analysis of the Preamble, Objects and General Principles sections of the Act as well as the chapters on diversion and sentencing. It notes that there is a clear and consistent framework for restorative justice and ubuntu in the Act that accords with the Constitutional Court’s understanding of both concepts. In addition, the article also inquires if the inclusion of these concepts has created a criminal justice system for children that does not hold them properly accountable for their actions. The question as to whether or not the Act has created a just say sorry regime is answered in the negative by way of reference to the numerous checks and balances included in the Act by the legislature. In this context it is contended that the inclusion of ubuntu-related ideologies remains relevant to the development of indigenous and locally constructed images of Africanized forms of justice, but that the true test of how it is integrated into the criminal justice system lies in the manner in which criminal justice role-players engage with ubuntu and how its implementation is effected.

Strengthening health systems for equity and social justice in South Africa: The 24th anniversary of the Centre for Health Policy

Strengthening health systems for equity and social justice in South Africa: The 24th anniversary of the Centre for Health Policy

Editors’ Introduction to Special Issue. ‘John Dugard: A Life in Pursuit of Higher Law’

This edition of the South African Journal on Human Rights is dedicated to one of its founders, and South Africa's leading human rights and international law scholar, Professor John Dugard. Its dual themes of 'human rights and social justice in South Africa' and 'international law' reflect Dugard's character as both irretrievably South African and intensely international in his way of thinking and his work.

Land and justice in South Africa

When Nelson Mandela took office on 10th May 1994 as South Africa’s first democratic president, he pledged that out of “an extraordinary human disaster” would come “a society of which all humanity will be proud”. Since then, South Africa has been praised for overcoming racial division and hatred in a peaceful manner while developing economic growth. This positive picture of post-apartheid South Africa has been compromised in recent years by rising crime, xenophobic violence, unemployment, and service-delivery protests. My research looks at how the new democracy has redistributed land and why less than 1% of the population still own the majority of the land. To understand the slow pace of land reform, I have examined the policies of the ANC, the polarised public debates on land reform, and the constraints on economic transformation. In order to achieve justice and ultimately reconciliation, problems with redistribution must be addressed. This requires not ...

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice in African Cities

Teaching and Learning Guide for: Sustainable Development and Environmental Justice in African Cities

Environmental justice in South Africa: tools and trade‐offs

Despite constitutional commitments to environmental justice in South Africa, evidence indicates that the poor and the natural environment continue to be marginalised in decision making. This paper examines the role of environmental assessment procedures, specifically Environmental Impact Assessments, in shaping outcomes at the local level to understand how injustices are perpetuated and maintained. Injustices are understood here by examining the relationship between power, knowledge and rationality, and the effects these have on including the public in decision‐making processes. In the revamping of environmental assessment regulations in South Africa, much attention has been paid to streamlining the process of assessment. However, this paper argues that environmentally just decisions cannot be made in a context where debates are centred on process. Instead, debates need to be redirected to qualities of outcomes, foregrounding the need for an approach grounded in questions of value. Recognising that the poor and the natural environment tend to systematically lose out in a context where environment is pitted against development, environmental assessment must be able to take into account the distributional consequences of decisions. Furthermore, the paper makes a case for the need to challenge the broader political context within which environmental assessments are conducted, as environmental assessments cannot replace broader strategic and policy debates. In the absence of this broader institutional challenge, political power will continue to work through decision‐making tools to perpetuate and maintain systems of injustice.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Gender Justice in South Africa

AbstractThis article critically explores the extent to which corporate social responsibility in South Africa contributes to the quest for gender justice in the world of economy. It fi nds that business has avoided the notion of responsibility in favour of investment and philanthropy, and that meaningful and constructive approaches to gender ideals have not as a result been forthcoming. e article argues for a renewed understanding of and commitment to responsibility with special attention given to underlying perspectives impeding this approach, but sees much promise in the role that churches with their theology and partners could fulfil in assisting the public discourse on women's human dignity, equality and freedom amidst various economic challenges.