The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Dale T. McKinley -
If the publicly expressed opinions of many opposition politicians, lawyers, academics, journalists and political commentators are to be believed then South Africa has already had several ‘constitutional crises’ and there are more hovering on the horizon.
Cast your memories back a decade and the messy saga involving then President Mbeki and his highly controversial attempts to protect his Police Chief Jackie Selebi. Claims flew thick and fast from several...
Richard Pithouse -
For a long time the ANC was able to sacralise its authority by invoking the key events, ideas and personalities of the struggle like Catholics recite the Stations of the Cross. However we have now reached the point where the power of that political liturgy to inspire and to discipline is in precipitous decline. Patronage and repression have contained some of the fallout. But despite the mobilisation of money and guns to shore up the party’s authority, new heresies, some with their own...
Dale T. McKinley -
While most people in our country as well as across the globe would no doubt agree that the late Nelson Mandela was one of the outstanding persons of the 20th century, when it comes to 2013 here in South Africa there is another individual with Mandela-like qualities who deserves the accolade of ‘Person of the Year’ – Public Protector, Thulisile (Thuli) Madonsela.
Whatever we might think of the more specific political and economic legacies bequeathed by the Mandela-era led...
Cameron Brisbane -
One of the rarely debated elements in the fight against corruption is the protection afforded to whistle-blowers. They are no doubt the entry-point into the majority of investigations into wrongdoing. Public and state-owned companies are required, in terms of Section 159(7) of the Companies Act, to establish mechanisms to receive disclosures of impropriety and to publicise them to stakeholders -- employees, shareholders and even suppliers. This obligation is reinforced in the King III Code of...
