CONSTITUTIONAL COMMENTARY AND EVENTS
ARTICLES AND STATEMENTS
PRESIDENT ZUMA’S VIEWS ON MEDIA FREEDOM
PRESIDENT ZUMA’S CELEBRATION OF MEDIA FREEDOM DAY By Dave Steward, Executive Director of the FW de Klerk Foundation President Zuma is understandably unhappy with the
ARTICLE: PRESIDENT ZUMA’S CELEBRATION OF MEDIA FREEDOM DAY
President Zuma is understandably unhappy with the treatment he receives from the media – and particularly from the print media. He is regularly depicted with a shower emerging from his head. Artists paint him with his genitals exposed. He is castigated for corruption and the media continue to hound him over the expenditure of R246 million on his retirement home.
So, it is not surprising that when he went off text during his recent address to mark Media Freedom Day, the President expressed some emotion.
ARTICLE: BACK TO SCHOOL, MR DEPUTY-PRESIDENT?
In his address on 15 October 2015 to the Higher Education Transformation Summit in Durban, Deputy President Ramaphosa made the following statement:
“Though we have made a decisive shift from the fragmented, inefficient and inequitable higher education system of the apartheid era, we still feel its effects. Had the apartheid rulers not been so thorough, so methodical, so malevolent in the denial of education to the black majority, then South Africa would today be on a completely different developmental trajectory. We would be a more equitable nation, a more prosperous nation. We would have an advanced, diversified, more inclusive economy.”
PODCASTS
SUBMISSIONS
SPEECHES
EVENTS
THE CONSTITUTION AT WORK 2019 – BREAKFAST DISCUSSION 2
On 28 August, the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) and the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) hosted the second in a series of breakfast discussions for 2019.
ARTICLE: THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY PANEL ON LAND REFORM AND AGRICULTURE
The Final Report of the Presidential Advisory Panel on Land Reform and Agriculture, which was released to the public on 28 July, is already causing uncertainty and concern over the future of agriculture and property rights in South Africa. Two of the Panel’s 10 members, Dan Kriek, the President of Agri SA, and Nick Serfontein, a commercial farmer, have issued a minority report rejecting many of the Panel’s main recommendations.
The Panel was appointed by President Ramaphosa in September 2018 to “provide a unified policy perspective on land reform in respect of land restitution, land redistribution and land tenure reform”. It was also asked to report on the circumstances in which expropriation without compensation (EWC) should be applied and the procedures and institutions that should be involved in its implementation.
ARTICLE: WILL THE STATE-OWNED ENTITIES EVER FIND THEIR FEET?
The national electricity supplier, Eskom, has been operating in crisis mode for as long as any other State-owned enterprise (SOE) in South Africa, with the primary concern, of course, being its financial insecurity. On 23 July 2019, Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, introduced the Special Appropriations Bill (the Bill) in the National Assembly. The succinct Bill details additional funding for Eskom – in terms of which Minister Mboweni will be able to approve a whopping R59 billion bailout for Eskom. The funds will be released in a R29 billion chunk for the 2019/2020 period, with the remainder following in the 2020/2021 financial year.
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
- Equality
- Non-racialism
- Gender Rights
- The Constitution
- The Rule of Law
- Multiparty Democracy
- Personal Rights
- Cultural, Religious and Language Rights
- Freedom of Expression and Political Rights
- Social and Economic Rights
- Property Rights
- Education
- Access To The Courts, Information And Fair Adminstration