HSF Briefs

The recent criticism of the advocates’ profession for a lack of transformation has prompted the Minister of Justice, Michael Masutha, MP, to say that he will launch radical plans to make the Cape Bar, in particular, more demographically reflective of South Africa. This brief analyses the Minister’s comments.

This brief addresses transformation of the legal profession through the reformation of Legal Aid. This policy option may be unpopular in some quarters but could provide answers to the Bar’s problems. This brief is occasioned by correspondence between the author and a high-ranking official at Legal Aid, and demonstrates the need for radical policy thinking to address complex societal problems.

The recent decision of the Johannesburg Society of Advocates to implement a quota in favour of black/female advocates is, no doubt, well-intentioned. The Bar remains one of South Africa’s most untransformed professions. However, quotas may not be the magical silver bullet. In the short-term, it may provide immediate redress. But, long-term challenges will be how to widen access to, and guarantee retention within, the profession.

As part of the out of cycle review of South Africa’s eligibility under AGOA, a call for comments was included. The American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa (AmCham), the organisation that represents 250 US companies operating in SA, responded by detailing which issues were of concern to its members. In what follows, I consider at length the two most pressing issues raised by AmCham. I suggest that the poultry dispute has set a new and strong-armed precedent to economic relations between the two countries, and that our future under AGOA is far from certain.

A fifteen-year poultry trade dispute between South Africa and the US came to a head recently. Relations thawed, and the US gave our government a 60-day ultimatum in which to remove trade barriers to US bone-in chicken cuts that have blocked them from the SA market since 2000. But US concerns over South Africa's future commitment to meeting eligibility criteria are not limited to trade. The protection of existing investment through the legal recognition of property rights, as well as the creation and conservation of an environment conducive to foreign investors, are at least as important to the US government. In this pair of briefs, I begin by analysing the context the ultimatum was delivered in. I look at the nature of Agoa and our commitments under it, I chart the history of the trade dispute, and I consider the grounds and motivations underlying each side's actions. In the second brief, I examine the two most pressing issues impeding our future inclusion under Agoa. I conclude that US patience has likely run dry, and our future eligibility is far from certain.

The third brief in this series considered the economic programme of the SADC as it evolved since 2001. The original Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan has been revised recently, a Tripartite Free Trade Area has been launched, and a long-term economic strategy centred on industrial development and resource beneficiation has been approved. Discussing and evaluating the new economic trajectory that these changes signify is the subject of this final brief.

The first two briefs in this series described the history and structure of the SADC. This brief and the next will consider and evaluate respectively the origins and recent evolution of its economic programme.

In the first brief the history of the SADC was charted in its development from anti-colonial liberation alliance to regional economic integration organisation. In this brief, the second of four, I look in detail at the current institutional framework of the SADC following the 2001 restructuring.