Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0321/03212.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 27KB | 444 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03212}
$Pretitle{293}
$Title{South Africa
Chapter 4B.   Provincial Government}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Jean R. Tartter}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{provincial
government
south
blacks
white
courts
laws
system
court
legal}
$Date{1980}
$Log{Supreme Court Building*0321201.scf
}
Country:     South Africa
Book:        South Africa, A Country Study
Author:      Jean R. Tartter
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1980

Chapter 4B.   Provincial Government

     Under South Africa's highly centralized structure, the jurisdiction of
the four provincial governments is delimited by legislation enacted by the
national parliament. The chief executive officer (the administrator) of each
province is appointed by the state president, which means in practice that
the administrator is selected by the prime minister and is customarily a
member of the party in power in parliament. The administrator plays a dual
role as agent of the national government in the province and chairman of the
provincial Executive Committee. The committee consists of five members, all of
whom (except the administrator) are as a matter of practice members of the
elected Provincial Council and selected from the majority party by council
vote. The Executive Committee decides all matters before it by majority vote,
the administrator casting a single unweighted ballot plus a second
tie-breaking vote if necessary.

     Three of the four provincial councils have the same number of members as
seats held by provincial representatives in the national House of Assembly.
The Orange Free State, the least populous province, has twice as many
provincial councillors as seats in the lower house. The number of seats in the
provincial councils are Transvaal, seventy-six; Cape Province, fifty-five;
Orange Free State, twenty-eight; and Natal, twenty.

     Electoral districts are the same for both national and provincial
legislatures with the exception of the Orange Free State. While provincial
councillors are elected for five-year terms, the practice in recent years has
been for the state president to dissolve both provincial councils and
parliament on the same day, permitting simultaneous balloting for national and
provincial seats. Elections are contested on party lines. In the 1977
provincial elections, the National Party won majorities in three provinces
while the New Republic Party (NRP) controlled the government in Natal.

     Perhaps the most important function delegated to the provinces by
parliament is responsibility for White education at the primary and secondary
levels. Authority has also been delegated for provincial roads, construction
of public buildings, administration of hospitals, and supervision of municipal
and other local governing bodies.

     The councils normally meet twice annually, a session of up to two months
near the beginning of each year to review the budget and deal with ordinances
(provincial laws) and later a short session to take up requests for
supplementary expenditures. Laws passed by the national parliament take
precedence, and provincial ordinances may be vetoed at the national level.
About one-third of all provincial expenditures are earmarked for education and
30 percent for the operation of hospitals; most of the remainder is allotted
to roads and public works, including school and hospital construction.

     Subservience of provincial governments to the national parliament is
further exemplified by their limited revenue sources, consisting mostly of
taxation on vehicles, racing, and lotteries and license fees. Some 80 percent
of their resources are in the form of grants from the central government.
Provinces are precluded from borrowing on private financial markets and are
obliged to turn to the central authorities for any needed credits.

Municipal Government

     In contrast to the provinces, authorities of White municipalities are
relatively independent financially, securing only about 4 percent of their
income from the central and provincial governments. Local governments are
nevertheless subordinate to the provinces in the execution and administration
of national and provincial legislation, and their power to enact municipal
bylaws is subject to approval of the provincial administrator.

     The jurisdiction of municipal governments falls primarily in the areas
of public health and environmental services such as water, electricity, parks
and recreation, immunization, food inspection, libraries, low-income housing,
trash removal, fire fighting, streets, and traffic control. The leading
revenue sources are the property tax (40 percent) plus service charges,
licenses, and fines (40 percent.)

     The provincial administrator has authority to establish local government
bodies. Only eleven urban areas have sufficiently large populations to qualify
for the city council form of government. Town councils, of which there are
327, are the most common such authorities. In addition 122 village councils
have been created.

     Municipal councils, elected generally for five-year terms, range from
three to nine members in size. Election is on a party basis in some
communities like Johannesburg and on a nonparty basis in others like Cape
Town. The members serve rotating one-year terms as mayor, but the role is
largely ceremonial. The town clerk, a permanent civil servant, is the chief
administrative and executive officer. In rural areas the local geographical
divisions of government are magisterial districts except for Cape Province
where divisional councils of elected officials provide local government.

     Previously municipal services were extended to adjacent Black townships
by the White municipal councils acting as agents for the Department of Bantu
Administration and Development. Since 1973, however, Black urban areas have
been administered directly by the central government through regional
administration boards. The White councils exercise some control over petty
apartheid by their power to segregate public facilities such as parks and
beaches.

     White municipal councils continue to provide services to Coloured and
Indian communities. Consultative committees of Coloured and Indian residents
have been formed, and in some cases limited powers have been delegated to
Coloured or Indian management committees; in a few instances separate
municipal councils have been permitted. Large numbers of Coloureds scattered
in White municipalities or in rural areas have not been provided with any
form of self-government or local representation. Even where Coloured
institutions exist, the lack of resource bases and weak influence on White
political bodies reduces the vitality of local political activity.

The Legal System

     The South African legal system, having its roots in Roman-Dutch and
English law and reflecting the historical origins of the two major ethnic
components of the White population, has evolved as a hybrid institution to
deal with what are perceived to be unique problems of a society of great
cultural heterogeneity. Roman-Dutch law was developed through the writings
of eminent Dutch jurists and through Dutch legal decisions of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries. Reaching the Cape with the Dutch East India Company,
it remained the common law during the entire 150 years of company rule.

     While Roman-Dutch law continued to be regarded as the common law after
the British came to power in Cape Colony in 1806, later assimilation of
English law resulted in substantial modification both in principle and
practice. Court procedures and behavior, the jury system, and rules of
evidence were patterned on the English model. English practices were also
introduced through the selection of English-speaking judges, the obligatory
use of English in the courts, and the influence of English constitutional
law arising from the introduction of the British system of government.

     In contemporary South Africa the primary source of law is legislation
rather tha