HSF Briefs

There is a pressing need for more comprehensive and conclusive data on migration, to counteract uninformed xenophobic sentiment and to make migration policy responsive to regional developments and national demands.

South African migration has been dictated by an increasingly restrictive policy trajectory that positions migrants as criminal and undeserving.

This brief reviews immigrants’ net economic contribution, and crime statistics. The OECD estimates that immigrants contribute between 8.9% and 9.1% of national GDP.

In this special brief, visiting researcher Emanuel Waddell compares the American and South African approach to independent oversight, and discusses whether there are any lessons that either country might learn from the other.

Parliament has an entire support structure comprising of two supporting offices, two branches and an administration. The employees of the support structure are the workhorses of Parliament. A report of the Joint Standing Committee on the Financial Management of Parliament for the 2017/18 financial year revealed strained labour relations in the parliamentary support structure which have manifested themselves in increased litigation by Parliament against its employees. Add to that the protest suicide of a senior parliamentary manager, and the report’s finding that the work environment and conditions were unpleasant, and it becomes clear that all is not well in the parliamentary support structure.

This brief discusses Parliament’s oversight duty (over, among others, organs of state) and Parliament’s accountability mechanism – the electorate. It briefly discusses the need for electoral reform in order to achieve better accountability for MPs.

In this brief Charles Simkins reflects on the state of play around questions of legitimate speech in contemporary society.

This brief looks at some important facts behind foreign nationals in the informal retail sector, and asks whether government’s current hostile stance on the matter, as voiced by the Minister of Small Business Development, will help or hinder South Africans.