Tag: The Rule of Law Project (RLP)

The Minister of Small Business Development has been parading a draft National Small Enterprise Amendment Bill. The period for allowing interested parties to submit comments about the draft Bill to the department has just ended. This ill-considered proposal would authorise officials to break contracts deemed 'unfair', no doubt causing commercial uncertainty and thereby discouraging larger businesses from contracting with small enterprises. The Bill defeats its own purpose.

The National Sport and Recreation Act, 1998, calls itself a statute for the promotion and development of sport. This year’s threatened draft changes would violate the Rule of Law just as the Act’s 2007 amendments do. The 2007 amending statute’s preamble declares that sport belongs 'to the nation'. Its administration, though, is been 'entrusted' to sport bodies.

The Rule of Law was mostly absent during Apartheid when a system of parliamentary supremacy elevated the state's effectively absolute power above all else.

Legally we have entered unchartered waters that government, perhaps understandably, appears unable to navigate. Practically, the coronavirus regulations cannot be adhered to in a society composed like South Africa’s. In whichever way one approaches the issue, the coronavirus regulations should in large part be set aside and replaced by less restrictive measures to control the pandemic.

The lockdown has begun. Only movement deemed 'essential' is now allowed – a significant limitation if not suspension of our right to freedom of movement guaranteed in section 21 of the Constitution. This opens a can of worms that our constitutional democracy might be ill-equipped to deal with.

Proposed government interference in the pay TV market is a violation of the freedom of contract, which is not only critical in the commercial world, but a fundamental guarantee of individual and community autonomy from the dictates of third parties.

The trade union federation Cosatu recently called for tax increases, particularly on the wealthy, to arrest South Africa’s economic down spiral. But economist Arthur B Laffer, known for popularising the Laffer curve, shows us that beyond a certain point, tax revenue will decline as tax rates increase.

The Rule of Law principle at the heart of South Africa’s constitutional dispensation is there to prohibit arbitrariness from government and demand reasonableness. Government’s plans to bring about expropriation without compensation (EWC), especially as a constitutional amendment, is a good case study of that very arbitrariness our legal system has been set up to combat.

Legislation which governs hate speech must be interpreted in line with the constitutional right to freedom of expression, and anyone who is accused, or who accuses others, of hate speech, must be treated equally without regard to their inborn characteristics.

When seeking care from a hospital or doctor, patients will now be required to present their proof of registration with the National Health Insurance (NHI) Fund to access healthcare services. Registration can be refused. Never before have South Africans’ constitutional right to access to healthcare been so brazenly threatened by a power-hungry government. Civil society must resist the proposed NHI scheme with all its might.