LETTER: RADICAL CLASH WITH THE CONSTITUTION
2015-08-12
We welcome reassurances by South African Communist Party (SACP) deputy general secretary Jeremy Cronin of his devotion to the Constitution (A distortion to stir the demagogues, Letters, Business Day, August 11.
However, his criticism of Paul Hoffman’s view that “those who subscribe to the values of the national democratic revolution (NDR)” are “anticonstitutionalists” is disingenuous. The NDR is, in fact, profoundly irreconcilable with the Constitution – and particularly with its foundational value of non-racialism (and thus by extension with the foundational values of human dignity and equality as well).
The Department of Trade and Industry has just published the latest version of the Promotion and Protection of Investment Bill. The Bill has its origins in the government’s wish to reassure foreign investors who were alarmed by South Africa’s decision three years ago to terminate its Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) with a number of European countries. Its purpose is supposedly to provide for “the legislative protection of investors” and the “promotion of investment”.
Race relations in South Africa are more fractious now than they have been at any time since 1994.
Many South Africans were charmed by the more conciliatory tone that President Zuma adopted in his response last week during to the State of the Nation (SONA) Debate.
The Foundation has been asked by a number of friends to comment on Magnus Heystek’s recent, very gloomy, article about South Africa’s prospects.
In an article that he wrote for Rapport last Sunday, Frans Cronje of the Institute for Race Relations quite rightly warned South Africans to plan for all eventualities.
The central message of President Zuma’s second inaugural address is that, during the next five years, his new government will launch the “second phase of our transition from apartheid to a national democratic society.
Workers Day – earlier this week – provided us with an opportunity to assess the state of employment and labour relations in our country.
The Department of Rural Development and Land Reform (DRDLR) has just published its final policy proposals on land reform titled “Strengthening the Relative Rights of People Working the Land“.