1. Introduction
According to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, it is suggested that the white population, as beneficiaries during the apartheid era, should now pay a special “wealth tax.” This tax is assumed to be used in assistance of the empowerment and upliftment of those who have been oppressed by apartheid, with the aim of establishing equality in South Africa. This essay will discuss the transformative nature of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa and its characteristics, and through this, the implementation of wealth tax as a policy will be analysed.
2. What is transformative constitutionalism?
South Africa’s constitution is widely acknowledged as a transformative constitution. Our constitution’s primary aim is to facilitate change in society, based on the values of ‘human dignity, achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms’ and ‘non-racialism and non-sexism’. According to Professor Karl Klare, transformative constitutionalism is a “long term project of constitutional enactment, interpretation, and enforcement committed to transforming a country’s political and social institutions and power relationships in a democratic, participatory and egalitarian direction.”
3. What are the characteristics of transformative constitutionalism?
3.1 Substantive equality
South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world, but the constitution’s transformative nature aims to eradicate this inequality. The constitution supports substantive equality with the focus on social reconstruction. Substantive equality takes into account that some groups have previously experienced disadvantage, and that measures should be put in place to right the wrongs of the past by bringing these groups on t...
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...gh tax levies. Tax payers who will be affected by this wealth tax may feel like they are being robbed blind. When tax payers believe that the tax system is unfair, they might start looking for loopholes – so-called tax avoidance. In order for this to stop, tax morality should come into play. Payers of wealth tax should believe that they are being good citizens when paying wealth tax.
6. Conclusion
South Africa is on a constitutional journey; a journey to rectify the mistakes of the past and move forward in a more equal society. Wealth tax will have the power to restrain the growing power of inherited wealth. Wealth tax, although a controversial topic, should be implemented in South Africa, as long as it is done so correctly. A policy on this tax should be implemented with the aim to make reparations in our unequal society and through this, redistribute wealth.
The “Fairness of Taxation or Wealth Tax” is where taxes are calculated by the net worth of the person or the couple (household). This would be hard for tax collectors to determine each and every component of net worth of a person.
The journey to democracy has been strongly driven by electoral systems. These systems provide routes for governments to represent the wills of their people. It provides the platform of legitimacy to the government and in most cases ensures freedom and order within a country. This essay will discuss the major differences between a majoritarian electoral system and proportional electoral system. In addition, it will demonstrate that the use of a majoritarian electoral system in a country would result in a more accountable and representative government. It will then go on to establish whether South Africa should adopt the majoritarian electoral system over the proportional electoral system, taking accountability, social representation and stability into account.
In this excerpt from Democracy in America Alexis Tocqueville expresses his sentiments about the United States democratic government. Tocqueville believes the government's nature exists in the absolute supremacy of the majority, meaning that those citizens of the United States who are of legal age control legislation passed by the government. However, the power of the majority can exceed its limits. Tocqueville believed that the United States was a land of equality, liberty, and political wisdom. He considered it be a land where the government only served as the voice of the its citizens. He compares the government of the US to that of European systems. To him, European governments were still constricted by aristocratic privilege, the people had no hand in the formation of their government, let alone, there every day lives. He held up the American system as a successful model of what aristocratic European systems would inevitably become, systems of democracy and social equality. Although he held the American democratic system in high regards, he did have his concerns about the systems shortcomings. Tocqueville feared that the virtues he honored, such as creativity, freedom, civic participation, and taste, would be endangered by "the tyranny of the majority." In the United States the majority rules, but whose their to rule the majority. Tocqueville believed that the majority, with its unlimited power, would unavoidably turn into a tyranny. He felt that the moral beliefs of the majority would interfere with the quality of the elected legislators. The idea was that in a great number of men there was more intelligence, than in one individual, thus lacking quality in legislation. Another disadvantage of the majority was that the interests of the majority always were preferred to that of the minority. Therefore, giving the minority no chance to voice concerns.
1. What is the difference between a. and a. Unlike the North – a term in vogue today, among others, for highlighting the difference between the rich, industrialised nations of mostly Western Europe, North America, Australasia, and the rudimentary economies of Latin America, Asia and Africa – underdevelopment, characterised by low income levels, poverty, low living standards and other socio-economic ills seem to be a defining feature of countries in these regions, collectively described as the Global South. Thomas (2003), Hershberg and Moreno-Brid(2003), and, Solimano(2005) suggest, for instance, that the socio - economic structure of most Latin American countries remains defined by vast inequalities in income and wealth distribution, poverty, volatile growth, high mortality rates and a high level of economic vulnerability. In Asia, a number of countries, including the large economies of India and China, have made improvements in the 21st century in terms of reducing poverty. Yet, 22% of the developing countries in Asia live on a dollar a day.
Americans tend to hold their great historical documents as sacred, giving those documents an incredible influence on American politics even today. Hundreds of years after the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were written, these documents still continue to shape American political culture. The Constitution seems to be the most powerful of American historical documents, giving rise to a constitutional politics in which every aspect of the document plays a vital role. The most heated political debates are often over the constitutionality, or lack thereof, concerning the issue in question. Differing interpretations of the Constitution allow for opposite sides of such debates to have points of view which are both seemingly valid even when they are mutually exclusive. Debates over specific issues then become debates over interpretations of the Constitution. Two of the most widely and heatedly debated aspects of the Constitution are the concepts of separation of powers and federalism.
Throughout South Africa’s history, apartheid has been a very important issue that stood out greatly in the country’s culture. The first law created to put apartheid into action was created in 1948. Many laws were created after that, such as the “Population Registration Act No 30 of 1950.” It stated, “A White person is one who is in appearance obviously white – and not generally accepted as Coloured – or who is generally accepted as White – and is not obviously Non-White, provided that a person shall not be classified as a White person if one of his natural parents has been classified as a Coloured person or a Bantu...” The government had to make a law regulating what people would be classified as if they were different, that makes the laws regarding people that fall under these categories very unfair. This was just the beginning of discrimination between people and apartheid. Up until 1994, the ...
Gerald, Cathy, and Russel (543) believes that, “The rich separate themselves from everyone else perpetrating their wealth from one generation to the next as nobility of the past century did”. In this society, it appears that individual feel that, if I go it then you should get it; no one wants to help others. Gerald, Cathy, and Russel (545), emphasizes that, “When income or wealth is taxed at high rates, the rich are not able to save and accumulate as
Black, P. A. (2006). 'Sin' Taxes and Poor Households: Unanticipated Effects. South African Journal Of Economics, 74(1), 131-136.
Apartheid, as occurred in South Africa, highlights how dignity—while something individuals recognize as being inherent to us as humans—can be stripped away through legal means, and then normalized in society, both on a national and international level. This essay will examine the context in which Apartheid occurred and the human right violations during this period under the National Party regime. Expanding off this analysis, I will review how effect South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission was in reestablishing the dignity of victims, and stabilizing the long dichotic socioeconomic
During this epoch, 1948-1994, The National Party (NP) government operated under the guise of equal development, equal freedom, and cultural expression. Blacks were forced from their lands, silenced, and treated superior to Whites. Under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, apartheid ended with peaceful resolution and resumed for twenty years. Now, South Africa is repeating history. White farmers are paying the for the near twenty-five-year-old debt with their lives and their land.
Coster, P., & Woolf, A. (Eds.).(2011). World book: South Africa’s Anti-Apartheid Movement, (pp. 56-57). Arcturus Publishers: Chicago.
Taxation is a compulsory levy imposed on the income, value of goods and services of individuals, partners and companies by the government. It is can be said to be an approach of imposing tax on the citizen. This imposition of tax, is expected to yield income which should be utilized in the provision of both basic and substantial infrastructural amenities, both social and security, as well as creates conditions for the economic well-being of the society at large.
South Africa really began to suffer when apartheid was written into the law. Apartheid was first introduced in the 1948 election that the Afrikaner National Party won. The plan was to take the already existing segregation and expand it (Wright, 60). Apartheid was a system that segregated South Africa’s population racially and considered non-whites inferior (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”). Apartheid was designed to make it legal for Europeans to dominate economics and politics (“History of South Africa in the apartheid era”).
The late Chief Justice Pius Langa wrote a report regarding the concept of transformative constitutionalism, his report make reference to defining what transformative constitutionalism is to help understand such a broad topic and ultimately the challenges that our country is faced to create an substantively equal society. Thus these challenges address what South Africans as well as what the government needs to fix in order to create and equal society and to fix the injustices of the past.
“I believe that the biggest factor which changed South Africa’s government was the international pressure it got, mostly from the UN. I would love to believe that South Africa’s government eventually understood their mistakes but the UN played a huge role. Without the tension from the United Nations, I probably wouldn’t have been able to get out of prison as soon as I did.”