Browsing by Author "Murray, Christina"
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- ItemOpen AccessLay assessors in South Africa's Magistrates' Courts(1998) Seekings, Jeremy; Murray, Christina
- ItemOpen AccessThe power to negotiate : examining mandating procedures in the National Council of Provinces and their impact on legislation and other parliamentary processes(2016) Whittle, Patricia; Murray, Christina; Schwikkard, Pamela JaneThis study explores provincial participation and examines (a) how and (b) to what extent negotiating mandates of the respective provinces are taken into account in the legislative processes of Parliament in selected bills in terms of ss 74 and 76 of the Constitution, 1996. It evaluates to what extent current systems, processes, rules and legislation give effect to the will of provinces, as an expression of the views emanating from provincial public participation. The study provides a brief overview of the historic background and evolution of the Parliament of South Africa, followed by a discussion of the constitutional and legislative framework from which the NCOP derives its mandate and a brief comparison of the NCOP to the second chamber of the German Federal Republic, the Bundesrat. The discussion of the Mandating Procedures of Provinces Act, 2008 examines in which ways the Act helps or hinders the mandating processes, drawing on case studies of selected s 76 bills processed before and after the MPPA came into effect. It considers whether the NCOP's public consultation can remedy flawed or inadequate public participation by a department. In the case of constitutional amendment bills that proposes provincial boundary changes, s 74 of the Constitution requires an affected province's approval for such a bill to be passed. It considers whether a constitutional amendment bill can be amended and propose various options for consideration. The conclusion finds that the NCOP gives effect to its constitutional mandate to represent provinces in the legislative and other processes of Parliament with lesser degrees of success in respect of ss74 and 76 bills affecting provinces. It recommends a review and amendment of the MPPA and the NCOP Rules (and where relevant the Joint Rules of Parliament) to enable provinces to have a more meaningful impact on the legislative and other Parliamentary processes involving provinces.
- ItemOpen Access'Tagging' bills in Parliament: Section 75 or Section 76?(2006) Murray, Christina; Simeon, RichardThe Constitution provides two procedures for passing ordinary bills in Parliament. Under the s 76 procedure, the provinces have real influence through their participation the NCOP. Under the s 75 procedure, provincial influence is very limited. The Constitution stipulates that bills that fall within an area of concurrent provincial/national competence must follow the s 76 process, but does not set out criteria to determine whether a bill should be 'tagged' as a s 76 or s 75 matter. Currently Parliament uses a Canadian test to 'tag' Bills. However, that approach fails to recognize the constitutional role of the NCOP. It is also designed to decide whether or not laws fall within the jurisdiction of provinces, an issue irrelevant to the tagging decision. This article argues that tagging decisions should be guided by South Africa's constitutional principles establishing the relationship between provinces and the national government, and suggests some criteria to ensure that those bills that most affect provinces are properly considered in the NCOP.
- ItemOpen AccessThe conception of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in comparison to the Constitutional Court of South Africa(1999) Rehm, Thomas K; Murray, ChristinaGermany as well as South Africa have established Constitutional Courts. The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, located in Karlsruhe (cf § 1 II BVerfGG), commenced its work in September 1951. Up to 1995 the Federal Constitutional Court heard more than 120,000 cases
- ItemOpen AccessThe language of racism and the criminal justice system(1995) Koen, Raymond Anthony; Murray, ChristinaThe question of racial bias in the criminal justice system has long been a controversial one in South African legal, sociological and political discussion. This thesis is an intervention in the discussion, in favour of the argument that the criminal justice system is a site of racial and other forms of bias. Whereas the conventional emphasis has been on the structures of bias, the focus here is upon the language of bias in the criminal justice system, that is, upon the way in which white judicial officers speak to or about working-class people of colour. Traditionally, the analysis of biased language has been concerned with the patent racist utterance or opinion, identified according to the positivist techniques of content analysis. However, of late an important shift has taken place in the language of racism, to a discourse formally free of blatant racist insults. The analysis of the language of this "new racism" in the criminal justice system is the central focus of this thesis.