Rule In South Africa Research Articles

Examining Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation and Audit Quality in South Africa: Practitioner and Academic Perspectives

In this study, we examined the perceptions of practitioners and academics perspectives about the impact of mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR) on audit quality (AQ) in South Africa within the province of KwaZulu-Natal. The paper considered the position of the European Union (EU) and the South African Independent Regulatory Body for Auditors (IRBA) regarding its policy shift on MAFR. The study examined the logical connection between MAFR and AQ. This was through the opinion of 101 practitioners and academics gathered from Tier 2 audit firms and two public institutions about the readiness of the rule in South Africa’s jurisdiction. We utilised a quantitative research method through descriptive statistics to understand the influence of the policy on AQ. Opinions of audit experts through closed-ended questionnaires were a distinct feature of our research, while analysis of the descriptive study was on the usage of feedback from respondents. Results from the data analysis presented provided a general overview of respondents’ opinions on the rule. Affirming our research aim, data from the majority of respondents agreed that the policy would strengthen AQ but maintained that the results of the additional imposition of cost could be worse. While this paper contributes to the existing literature on MAFR and AQ, it recommends that further research should concentrate on pre and post-implementation of the policy employing views from registered auditors and academics from different provinces in South Africa to measure the policy effects of the rule on AQ.

The Implementation of Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation as tool to enhance Audit Reform in South Africa: A Case of KwaZulu-Natal

Using a quantitative research method, this article examined the perceptions of audit experts concerning the influence of mandatory audit firm rotation on audit reform (AR) in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Data was gathered from 102 audit experts knowledgeable in the field of accounting and auditing from Tier 2 audit firms and two public institutions and used for data analysis. The empirical results of this study were two-fold. Firstly, the descriptive statistics provided a general overview of the respondents’ opinions. The majority of respondents agreed that MAFR implementation would strengthen audit reform, thereby validating the initial position of the Independent Regulatory Board of Auditors. In addition, most participants agreed that the ramification of the imposition of additional costs could not be ignored. Moreover, the utilization of SPSS on ordinal logistic regression also found that the probability of a decrease in the progress of audit reforms is significantly higher when mandatory audit firm rotation is in place, and a non-significant positive predictor of mandatory audit firm rotation would increase audit independence. This article contributes to existing knowledge and the continuous discourse on mandatory audit firm rotation rule in South Africa. Conclusively, the study, therefore, recommends that since the research was limited to Kwazulu-Natal, future studies should broadly include registered auditors and academics from institutions and firms in different South African provinces to obtain diverse views about pre-and post-implementation of the rule in 2023 to compare the effects of the policy on audit independence.

Apartheid Internationalism: Canadian Activism in Defence of White Rule in Southern Africa, 1965–94

From 1965 to 1994, some Canadians participated in transnational activism aimed at supporting or excusing white minority rule in South Africa and Rhodesia. Their ideas, arguments, and interconnections contributed to “apartheid internationalism,” a form of internationalism without central organization yet forged through a common cause and specific (and sometimes covert) political networks. The Canadian fraction of the movement was internally diversified and decentralized. Yet this article shows that ties among activists were considerable. Whether taking pro-apartheid or “anti-anti-apartheid” positions, participants expressed variants of white supremacism, contextualizing and qualifying their views on racial superiority within adjacent right-wing political projects. Not entirely unlike studies of anti-apartheid activism, the examination of the defenders of apartheid demonstrates the importance of race in Canadian international history. It also shows how a range of people beyond politicians and diplomats engaged with transnational issues. Most strikingly, the analysis reveals that liberal internationalism or internationalisms associated with the political left were not the only responses to a decolonizing world. Some Canadians with conservative and authoritarian perspectives refused to accept a decline of white power or found new ways to present their support for white minority governments in southern Africa.

History and politics of mental health policy and care in South Africa

This paper starts with a broad historical overview of the influence of colonial rule on shaping the racialised and socio-economic environment which predated and persisted into the adoption of formal apartheid practices, and the mental health and wellbeing related impacts on the people of South Africa. This is followed by a review of policy and service developments within the past 25 years of post apartheid democratic rule in South Africa. Some of the successes and failures of the different policies provided in South Africa are explored. The paper concludes with some emerging trends in policy and practice that will need attention in the coming decades as we seek to improve the mental wellbeing of South Africans, including South Africans living with mental disorders. The paper extrapolates key points of relevance from the South African experience to other contexts experiencing the mental health related impact of colonialism and other current forms of oppression, including ableism, gender discrimination, and others.

Role of Indian Diasporic Associations in Promoting Indian Diasporic Identity in South Africa

The Indian Diaspora in South Africa is not a monolithic identity and belongs to different parts and states of India. Each of them speaks a different language, has a unique culture and follows different traditions amongst themselves. In order to preserve and protect this culture especially during the colonial rule in South Africa, many of the Indian Diaspora Associations were formed. These Associations have a long history in promoting the unity amongst their specific communities through promotion of their languages, culture, festivals, practices, food etc. In a way this has provided the Indian Diaspora a unique identity within the larger context of the Indian Diaspora. The various associations and their work has proved to be beneficial in times of emergency and in promoting the interests and concerns of the Indian Diaspora in the global context.

THE BUSINESS JUDGMENT RULE (PART 2)

The business judgment rule entails that courts should not hold a director liable for a decision that produces poor results in the circumstances in which the director made the decision in good faith, with care and on a informed basis, which the directorbelieved was in the best interest of the company. This article considers the South African position relating to the director’s commonlaw duty of care and skill. The Companies Act, recommendations of the King Committee, and the Department of Trade and Industry’s report on corporate law reform are taken into account. The efficiency of the current law in South Africa is evaluated in light of the advantages and disadvantages of the importation of a foreign legal rule.A closer examination of the characteristics of the business judgment rule and the South African law relating to director liability will reveal whether it is essential to implement the rule in South Africa. In paragraph 3 a conclusion is drawn and an assessment made of whether it is indeed desirable or necessary to import the business judgment rule into South African law.

A ‘Rebel’ on the Run: Kenyan Gambles on Intercollegiate Athletics, Apartheid Sport, and US Road Racing of the 1980s – The Case of Samson Obwocha

In 1988, a solitary Kenyan runner joined a ‘rebel’ track and field tour of South Africa: Samson Obwocha, a ten-time NCAA Division II and junior college national champion who was then maintaining a precarious, post-collegiate running career on the US road race circuit. Obwocha sought to achieve his vision of his own excellence by way of athletics, yet the pursuit of a livelihood from that vocation ultimately put him in conflict with his own nation’s efforts to end the tyranny of apartheid rule in South Africa. Either by happenstance, choice, or bad luck, Obwocha’s efforts to express himself through the vehicle of athletics from the late 1970s to 1990 left him entangled with the major controversies of the era, from the contentious issue of international athletes competing for US colleges to the changing economics of track and field to the zenith of the boycotts that prevented South Africa from participating in most international sporting contests to force the regime to dismantle apartheid. His extraordinary story illuminates the history of African athletes competing for colleges in the United States and of one of the most-discussed contours of sport and political history, the anti-apartheid struggle, and its intersections with the precarity of professional running in the 1980s.

CUTTING THE CANE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE STRUGGLE TO BANISH CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FROM SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN AND SOUTH AFRICA (PART 1)

For centuries corporal punishment was used as a method for disciplining school children in Britain. Britain was one of the last countries in the European Union to abolish this form of punishment in its schools, and did so only after a long and bitter struggle waged in parliament, on the streets, and in various courts of law. This article traces the manner in which this practice became deeply entrenched in the British way of life, as well as the long battle to dislodge it. The focus then shifts to the evolution and eventual demise of this form of punishment in South African schools. During the long years of British rule in South Africa, British attitudes towards the corporal punishment of school children profoundly influenced those responsible for education in this African country. However, the attachment of South African educational authorities, educators, and parents to corporal punishment cannot be explained simply by reference to the influence of British educational values, and the article seeks to take account of the general history of corporal punishment in the African context. This history is entwined with the history of colonialism on the continent, and the article explores the unique social meanings attached to this form of punishment in the African context, as well as its historical importance as a means of social control. The article is divided into two parts. In part one of the article, the evolution and eventual demise of corporal punishment in British schools is traced, followed by a brief general overview of corporal punishment in the African context, as well as a short discussion of the use and eventual abolition of this form of punishment in South African schools. In part two of the article, the continued use of corporal punishment in South African schools, even after this form of punishment was legally abolished following the end of apartheid, is examined in detail.

CUTTING THE CANE: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE STRUGGLE TO BANISH CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FROM SCHOOLS IN BRITAIN AND SOUTH AFRICA (PART 2)

For centuries corporal punishment was used as a method for disciplining school children in Britain. Britain was one of the last countries in the European Union to abolish this form of punishment in its schools, and did so only after a long and bitter struggle waged in parliament, on the streets, and in various courts of law. This article traces the manner in which this practice became deeply entrenched in the British way of life, as well as the long battle to dislodge it. The focus then shifts to the evolution and eventual demise of this form of punishment in South African schools. During the long years of British rule in South Africa, British attitudes towards the corporal punishment of school children profoundly influenced those responsible for education in this African country. However, the attachment of South African educational authorities, educators, and parents to corporal punishment cannot be explained simply by reference to the influence of British educational values, and the article seeks to take account of the general history of corporal punishment in the African context. This history is entwined with the history of colonialism on the continent, and the article explores the unique social meanings attached to this form of punishment in the African context, as well as its historical importance as a means of social control. The article is divided into two parts. In part one of the article, the evolution and eventual demise of corporal punishment in British schools is traced, followed by a brief general overview of corporal punishment in the African context, as well as ashort discussion of the use and eventual abolition of this form of punishment in South African schools. In part two of the article, the continued use of corporal punishment in South African schools, even after this form of punishment was legally abolished following the end of “apartheid”, is examined in detail.

“Settlement and Gradual Expansion of the Europeans in Southern Africa”: A History of the First Centuries of Colonial Rule in South Africa by Moravian Bishop Hans Peter Hallbeck

ABSTRACT This article offers a transcript and a translation of a text written in 1836 by Hans Peter Hallbeck, Moravian bishop in South Africa, about the first centuries of colonial rule in South Africa. Hallbeck proves to be one of the first historiographers of South Africa using primary sources. The article places this text in the context of other early histories of South Africa, such as histories by John Philip and Meent Borcherds. The comparison of these histories reveals how the authors' position in society in their own time influenced the way they viewed the past of South Africa: Philip sided with the original inhabitants, Borcherds with the Dutch colonists, whilst Hallbeck took a middle ground. Hallbeck's document laid virtually untouched in Moravian archives in Germany and South Africa, inaccessible to South African historians, mainly because of the old German handwriting. It proves to be a valuable addition not only to Moravian but also to South African historical research.

“A marathon, not a sprint”: Canada and South African apartheid, 1987–1990

In 2020, Canada does not maintain diplomatic ties with Iran or Saudi Arabia partly owing to their human rights violations—a choice which has eroded its capacity to act meaningfully in these countries. Thirty years ago, the Brian Mulroney government was faced with a similar decision: to sever relations with the white minority regime in South Africa or use its limited but real influence to contribute constructively to an end to apartheid. This article examines how Canada “punched above its weight” on an issue seemingly peripheral to its national interests from 1987 to 1990. It was during these oft-overlooked years—South Africa’s “darkest days”—that Canada engaged through multilateral fora, bilaterally, and its embassy to sustain global pressure and attention on apartheid. In so doing, the Mulroney government became a diplomatic battleground between its major allies, Pretoria, and its African Commonwealth partners. Such efforts were not without costs, but Canada’s “advanced middling” role helped to bring about a peaceful transition towards majority rule in South Africa and thus holds contemporary lessons for policymakers.

In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics by Benjamin Talton

Reviewed by: In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics by Benjamin Talton Charles Henry (bio) Benjamin Talton, In This Land of Plenty: Mickey Leland and Africa in American Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press 2019), ISBN 9780812251470, 281 pages. Imagine a charismatic, young, minority congressman with progressive views on health care, homelessness, immigration, Black-Latino coalitions, human rights, and humanitarian aid. Imagine also that this politician had been a community organizer and had an especially close connection to East Africa. No, it's not an idealized version of Barack Obama, it is Mickey Leland. The late Houston Representative is the subject of Benjamin Talton's In This Land of Plenty. Leland may have emerged as a presidential candidate if not for his tragic death in a plane crash while on a humanitarian aid mission in Ethiopia in [End Page 971] August 1989. Leland was a larger than life figure in Houston and among his colleagues on the Capitol Hill, yet he is largely forgotten today. Talton's work uncovers some of the reasons why and in the process points to some larger concerns around humanitarian aid, Africa and foreign policy. Leland was part of a group of Texas Southern student activists who formed the Black Community Action Team in 1968. Financed in large part by a local Presbyterian Church, they considered their connections to the movements and peoples in the Caribbean and Africa as self-evident. Deciding to focus his career on public health, Leland pursued pharmacy as a major. However, inspired by McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, he decided to run for the Texas state legislature the same year. Aided greatly by the support of a white philanthropist, Leland won. After a largely frustrating first term, the young legislator toned down his rhetoric and had some legislative success his second term. When Congresswoman Barbara Jordan retired in 1977, Leland sought and won her seat the following year. After arriving in Washington Leland discovered that the health issue already had a number of champions and decided to focus on global hunger. In the early seventies, Leland had traveled to East Africa and had been impressed with leaders like Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. When famine broke out in Ethiopia Leland had found his issue. The Houston Congressman's first official trip to Ethiopia in March 1983 to visit feeding centers affected him deeply. When the delegation Leland was a part of met with President Mengistu, he was convinced the government approached the famine with great concern and accepted Mengistu's contention that his policies and Ethiopia's civil wars had little to do with the problem. As a result, Leland tried to remain outside politics when it came to famine relief. Constant media coverage of Ethiopia's starving children produced a groundswell of popular support for relief aid that the Reagan administration was unable to ignore. And while Leland was able to capitalize on public pressure to provide famine relief, he was unable to separate it from politics. Republicans cited the Mengistu regimes' Communism as a major reason for Ethiopia's famine and pushed for regime change. Leland, fearful that such pressure would lead the regime to refuse aid, would not criticize the government. This strategy backfired when Leland and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus sought to criticize South African apartheid and rejected "constructive engagement." Although Leland argued apartheid was a human rights issue while Ethiopian aid was a humanitarian crisis, many of his colleagues failed to accept the distinction. In fact, the effort to end South African apartheid would represent the zenith of African American influence on United States foreign policy. The passage of the Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 over the veto of President Reagan was the culmination of over a decade of electoral and non-electoral activity on White rule in South Africa. The Congressional Black Caucus, led by Charles Diggs and later Ronald Dellums (Leland's mentor), had elevated South Africa to the status of a legitimate legislative issue and Jesse Jackson's two presidential campaigns made anti-apartheid a mainstream political issue. Shortly before he died Leland said: "I am convinced that the fate of African Americans in this country...

Contours of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement

Israelis and Palestinians have off-loaded the cost of their conflict to outsiders. The massive subsidies for Palestinians should be gradually withdrawn and Israel should pay rent for the settlements and lands it occupies. This rent will fund the Palestinian economy and act as compensation in lieu of the right of return. The Palestinian state will be demilitarized and neutral, and become viable through economic ties to Israel and international aid. Two states will coexist along the 1967 Green Line, and East Jerusalem will be made part of “Jerusalem: one city, two capitals.” Peace-making will be backed by the major international stakeholders and the agreement will be legitimized by voters in both countries. No one is under any illusions about the obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. Yet ideas that seem far fetched in time become actionable: for decades no one expected that majority rule in South Africa would be peacefully achieved, and few anticipated that Franco-German cooperation and alliance after two bloody World Wars would give birth to the European Union.

Reflecting a Diaspora: In-between Whitework and Indigo

Homi Bhabha’s “third space” theory provides a framework for deconstructing identity and creating new forms of expression in a space considered “in-between” cultures or boundaries. An Indian-embroidered English christening garment represents a multigenerational economic migration for a “self-portrait”-style investigation. This gown materializes a subjective narrative of the legacy of British colonization, postcolonization, and apartheid rule in South Africa. The stitch craft and associated cultural history of whitework reveal traces of the impact of class and colonial status barriers. In parallel, a trusted cotton indigo fabric iShweShwe1 is frequently worn in the post-apartheid, postcolonial nation. iShweShwe’s cross-cultural heritage includes links to German/Hungarian BlauDruk fabric and the English colonial cotton export trade. Cultural associations have crossed ethnicity barriers and the entrenched colonial color and class discriminatory practices. This preliminary research questions the experiences of the multigenerational migrants linked to the gown and the accompanying insider–outsider dislocated experience of a migrant influenced by colonial rule and decolonization in India and South Africa.

Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the Struggle for Black Majority Rule in South Africa

This work examines the contribution of Nigeria and Zimbabwe to the liquidation of apartheid and institutionalised racism in South Africa. It analyses the diplomatic engagement of both countries in intergovernmental organizations such as the UN, OAU and the Commonwealth in the struggle for the establishment of racial equality and democracy in South Africa. The work highlights the cooperation of Nigeria and Zimbabwe in efforts to end apartheid and racism in South Africa. Both countries were committed to pan-Africanism and united in commitment to anti-colonialism and racial equality and this made them to cooperate in the anti-apartheid struggle. A number of works exist on Nigeria’s role in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, but there is hardly any that focuses on the cooperation between Nigeria and Zimbabwe in the struggle to end racism in the country. Anti-colonialism and racial equality were important foreign policy objectives that Nigeria adopted from independence in 1960 and this made her to be involved in the independence struggle in Zimbabwe. Nigeria’s involvement in the independence movement in Zimbabwe contributed tremendously to Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 and following Zimbabwe’s independence, both countries worked together to assist other African territories still under colonial rule. The work utilizes mainly oral sources, government records, reports of international organizations, newspaper reports and journal articles as sources of information. The work maintains that cooperation between Nigeria and Zimbabwe contributed extensively to the establishment of racial equality and democracy in South Africa in 1994. The study concludes that African states canbuild on the ideals of pan-Africanism to address contemporary problems as they did in the struggle against apartheid from the 1960s to the 1990s.

The Potency of the State: Logics of Informality and Subalternity

This article serves as an epilogue to the special issue curated by Claire Bénit-Gbaffou and Sarah Charlton with a focus on state power and the concept of informality. In my reflection, I examine the specificity of statecraft in the context of postcolonial government. In particular, I analyse political potency as a relationship between the state and subaltern subjects. Also at stake in this paper is the question of comparative and transnational analysis. In what ways can concepts generated through the study of processes of urban informality in India speak to the production of illegality and the reproduction of rule in South Africa?

Curriculum Transformation in a Post-Apartheid South African University: The Arts Faculty, Tshwane University of Technology

ABSTRACTDuring the apartheid rule in South Africa, established universities and other tertiary institutions were forcibly segregated to serve particular racial groups. Some critics have stated that the apartheid regime in South Africa supported an exclusively Western model of education, and that university education was based on a mono-cultural approach with bias towards Western values and expectations. With the demise of apartheid in 1994, the Government of National Unity (GNU) merged the fragmented hodgepodge of segregated tertiary institutions into 23 (now 26) public universities (26 since in 2004), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) being one. There has been a paradigm shift to accommodate a new form of education which is not only supposed to address the imbalances of the past but be of relevance to the twenty-first-century knowledge economy. The transformation of the education sector is supposed to boost the Africanisation (African-oriented content) of the syllabus, foregrounding the cultural practices and values of the African people. In TUT the arts faculty faced challenges of rationalisation, and the faculty management is poised to effect the paradigm shift. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the African-oriented content concept has been realised in the arts curriculum of Tshwane University of Technology TUT.

Protecting Animals from Mistreatment through Private Prosecutions in South Africa: A Comment on National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals v Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development 2016 1 SACR 308 (SCA)

AbstractThe general rule in South Africa is that, when an offence is committed, the suspect has to be prosecuted by a public prosecutor. However, there is an exception whereby a victim of crime is permitted to institute a private prosecution if the prosecutor has declined to prosecute. South African law allows natural, but not juristic, persons to institute private prosecutions. In the case examined in this note, the appellant argued that the law prohibiting juristic persons from instituting private prosecutions is discriminatory. The Supreme Court of Appeal held that private prosecutions are only permitted on grounds of direct infringement of human dignity. This note argues that section 7 of the Criminal Procedure Act is unconstitutional for excluding juristic persons from instituting private prosecutions and recommends steps the appellant could take to institute private prosecutions against those who mistreat animals.

The Threat of BDS

The Threat of BDS

Ideology and Hegemonic Party Rule in South Africa, Hungary, and Turkey

ABSTRACTIn recent years, there has been an increasingly prevalent trend observed in emerging democracies in which popular parties rise to a position of dominance and engage in actions that seriously threaten democracy and democratic consolidation. I ask, why do some dominant parties veer into authoritarianism and undemocratic rule while others do not? I theorize that in societies where dominant parties veer into authoritarian practices (which we call hegemonic party system) rests on the fact that there are deep, long-standing, and seemingly irreconcilable social cleavages around race, religion, or the economy. Using the cases of ANC (African National Congress) in South Africa, Fidesz in Hungary, and AKP (Justice and Development Party) in Turkey, I find that only in countries in which a particular party or viewpoint has been institutionally marginalized will hegemonic party rule become more likely. This is in contrast to parties such as Japan’s LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) which did not become hegemonic, for it had no ideological rival to pit itself against. My analysis goes beyond the argument about a lack of experience with democratic contestation as the cause of the rise of hegemonic parties, offering a generalizable framework demonstrating the factors that facilitate the process of authoritarian slip.