Tag: rule of law

Government’s push to water down the constitutional protection for property rights in South Africa by amending the Constitution should shock everyone of whatever race or socio-economic background. Every South African who owns property will be in jeopardy if the vital check of compensation is repealed.

The draft Bill aimed at shoring up struggling banks violates the 'rule of law' by authorising unequal treatment without identifying objective differences to justify it. In addition, in dispensing with equal treatment merely because someone at the SA Reserve Bank, without objective criteria, determines that such action is necessary.

When political parties begin to take over the roles of Trade Unions, there is cause for great concern in the progress of South Africa’s new democracy. The EFF, long a disrupter in the South African political landscape, has recently turned to workplace disruption.

The law is supposed to fulfil two important functions in society: protecting people’s persons and property, and conflict avoidance. When the law steps outside of these functions, the law itself becomes a source of conflict, as we have seen throughout history, especially in contemporary South African history.

South Africa and other societies spend untold millions on combating the scourge of corruption. Conferences are held on how to fight it more effectively and entire academic fields are dedicated to analysing it. We tend, however, to overthink and complicate corruption.

The Free Market Foundation (FMF) notes with concern a report on legislative performance that shows that Parliament has acquiesced to the executive branch of government substituting Parliament as law-maker and to giving it parliamentary rubber-stamps in recognition of its efforts.

It seems the African National Congress (ANC) is determined to press ahead with the expropriation of property without compensation. This raises a number of constitutional questions.

Given the current economic situation in the country characterised by low growth, more people are coming to appreciate the sound moral, philosophical, and economic underpinnings of a free market economy.

Competition is not something that can be artificially created. Competition is an inherent facet of human – or living – nature, and thrives most when it is left alone. The notion that government can introduce swaths of laws, regulations, and red tape, like the new Competition Amendment Bill, and not have a deleterious effect on competition and economic growth is naïve.