Thesis (LLM. (Labour Law)) -- University of Limpopo, 2013 / The South African government has paid compensation in a form of special pension to individuals who have been exposed to certain types of hardship and suffering caused by the governments or their predecessors. This compensation is described as ‘the appreciation or sense of guilty of society towards those people on whom the government has rightfully or wrongfully and at any rate disproportionally inflicted damage’. Government have been prepared to pay compensation to the following persons: former enemies, victims of war, victims of harmful compulsory vaccination measures, persons who had sacrificed their jobs and education in the process of overturning oppressive governments establishing democratic government; and persons whose basic human rights had been violated by governments or their predecessors. These persons have sacrificed their lives either in exile or within South Africa fighting for South Africa to be democratic. These persons must prove that they served their respective political organisations for a period of five years or above or they were banished or restricted in certain area or imprisoned or sentenced.

Thesis (LLM. (Labour Law)) -- University of Limpopo, 2015 / Section 37C of the Pension Funds Act was introduced primarily to ensure that death benefits are paid in accordance with the object of the Act and government policy. Its purpose is to make sure that the dependants of the deceased member are not left destitute upon the death of the member. In order to achieve this, the death benefits are placed under the control of the trustees who are tasked with the duty to distribute the benefits equitably among the beneficiaries. According to this section, death benefits do not form part of the deceased’s estate and as a result a beneficiary under the last will and testament of the deceased is not necessarily a beneficiary under section 37C of the Act. The board of trustees will consider a person as a beneficiary if the deceased member has nominated such a person in a valid nomination form. This section therefore overrides the deceased’s freedom of testation because the board of trustees are not bound by the deceased’s wishes as completed in the nomination form. A nomination form is one of the factors which the trustees have to consider in the exercise of their discretion to make an equitable distribution.

Agencification-the creation of autonomous agencies within the public service-has been occurring in many jurisdictions. It has usually had a rationale of improving the way in which government works. Generally, agencies are expected to provide more flexible, performance-oriented, responsive public services. The purpose of this work is to examine a particular example of agencification in the Australian Public Service (APS) and to compare it analytically with similar occurrences elsewhere. Specifically, it will examine the splitting of the former Department of Social Security (DSS) into two separate organisations, a policy department and a service delivery agency operating under a purchaser-provider arrangement, Centrelink. It will do this in the context of theories of agencification and of practical experience of agencification elsewhere. It will analyse why agencification has happened in this case and what the experience has shown, focusing on the role, governance, accountability and prospects for the new arrangements. This, the most prominent and substantial case of agencification in the Australian government, will be compared with the agencification experience reported in other jurisdictions-the United Kingdom and New Zealand. It will address why Centrelink came about, what the outcome has been of the change in institutional arrangements, and what the likely future is of the Centrelink arrangements. It will show that, when examined closely, the mechanisms bringing about agencification have been diverse. However, there are parallels in the experience. This leads to a conclusion that the current Centrelink arrangements are not stable in the long term, and some aspects-such as the purchaser-provider arrangement - should be set aside.

老年年金制度的實施是全民共同的期望，亦是政府、企業與個人共同的責任，其制度之設計應作一前瞻性及整体性的考量，否則不僅會影響老人之生活保障、社會所得重分配及資源配置效率，亦將影響政府之財政收支狀況與總俸經濟之成長。本文之研究目的，旨在於瞭解現行各國老年年金制度，並吸取各國經驗、參酌我國政治、經濟、文化背景，以建構一個符合我國國民需求的老年年金制度，另預估政府之財政負擔，以作為政府補助之參考。 　　本文首先探討年金保險之理論基礎，繼而論述政府介入老年年金保險之理由，並將德國、英國、美國、瑞典及日本等五個較具代表性國家之現行老年年金制度，分別作概括性的介紹友主要項目之跨國比較，然後提出我國老年年金制度可採行之規劃方向，最後則對政府在基礎年金制度中應有的財務責任提出相關建議，並預估民國85年制度實施後政府之財政負擔。 　　本文研究之主要結論為：現行主要國家老年年金制度多傾向於採單一制，並以勞資雙方繳納之保險費為主要財源，且係採定率之方式計算保險費，以隨收隨付制處理財務方式，並依生活成本指數調整年金給付，另亦依該國之經濟狀況及勞動市場之供需情形，增訂有關提前退休、延後退休及部份退休之規定。我國老年年金制度亦以採一制、保險費為主要財源、定額保費與定額給付之方式及修正賦課制之財務處理方式為最佳，並可以前一年台灣地區個人平均消費支出之60%為給付水準。 　　政府基於家庭失靈、市場失靈、殊價性、所得重分配、風險分攤、行政效率較高與財務較穩定等理由，故除了負擔其為雇主身份的保險費及提撥一固定比例之行政事務費以外，另應補助低收入戶之保險費及給予全俸國民不分職業別的支出面齊一比例的補助。而預估若政府於民國85年開辦老年年金制度，則其財政負擔將增加280-470億，因此應選擇適當財源支應後，方可付諸實施，以免社會福利拖垮財政。

This thesis consists of three essays, which all concern the dynamics of pension reform. The first essay evaluates the financial balance and the demographic adjustability of the reformed Swedish pay-as-you-go pension system. The main findings are that the demographic adjustability of the system is poor. Furthermore, the financial balance and pension levels are, to a large degree, dependent on the pension fund and its returns. Making some alterations to the system's benefit formula may improve the adjustability of the system, as well as decreasing its pension fund dependency. It is also shown that the new public system imposes an age-dependent implicit tax on labor earnings that is falling with age. Within the pay-as-you-go system, this tax is large for younger workers for whom almost the whole contribution is regarded as a tax. By introducing a public defined contribution system, the total implicit tax may be reduced since the defined contribution system implies a negative implicit tax because savings are subsidized within the defined contribution system. In the second essay a three-generation OLG model for analyzing a privatization of PAYG old-age social security is developed. Furthermore, it proposes an explicit reform for how the privatization transition may be undertaken. The set of government policy instruments is limited to debt issuing and proportional labor income taxation. The possibilities of a Pareto-improving privatization, given the proposed reform, are then analyzed. Contrary to models where a two-generation OLG framework is used, the three-generation framework creates possibilities for a Pareto-improving privatization of old-age social security, since the PAYG system induces a non-optimal implicit tax over the life cycle. By shifting to an optimal tax policy cannot only the pension claims accrued under the PAYG system be financed, but the shift will also be Pareto-improving. In the third essay the performance of the reformed Latvian pay-as-you-go pension system is evaluated against the background of an exceptional projected decrease in the Latvian labor force. The pension system is designed to handle the upcoming difficulties, and special attention has been given in the design to keep the expenditures low relative to the revenues, by introducing rules dampening the increase in the pension expenditures. In the light of the pessimistic projection of the Latvian demography, the newly reformed PAYG system performs remarkably well. The expenditure reducing rules introduced have significant effects on the system's financial balance. The pension reform also includes the launch of a publicly run defined contributions pension system. It is shown that the resulting implicit tax imposed by the public pension system imposes on labor earnings is negative and increasing with age. That is, savings are subsidized in the public pension system. It is also shown that private savings are fully crowded out as individuals try to offset their savings in the pension system. Since individuals are capital constrained, they will have no private assets at all. From a welfare perspective, this suggests the overall contribution rate to the public pension system to be too high. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2002</p>

<p>This thesis deals with a very important issue in South African society, i.e. the provision of financial and non-cash support to older persons. Older persons in South Africa can be described as a sizeable but vulnerable group requiring specific protection. Section 27 of the South African Constitution of 1996 obliges the state to take reasonable legislative and other measures within available resources to progressively realise the right of access to social security. Hence, the steps taken by the state to promote older persons&rsquo / right of access to social security and to protect their right to dignity need to be evaluated. The legislative framework for the provision of financial and non-cash support to older persons currently is fragmented into various statutes dealing with retirement income, state grants to older persons and care and support services for older persons. Therefore, the current legislation lacks an integrated approach to the provision of support and care to older persons, as well as a central principle on which to base future legislation concerning older persons. One such principle that could potentially be adopted is intergenerational solidarity, which can be described as the solidarity between the active working-age population, as one generation, from which benefits flow to older persons as the other. This thesis evaluates whether intergenerational solidarity should form the basis of South African legislation on the provision of retirement income and the provision of care and support to older persons, and if so, whether it in fact does. If the answer to the latter is in the negative, the thesis further examines whether the current process to reform the retirement income system and related legislation in South Africa would be a suitable platform to introduce the concept of intergenerational solidarity to legislation concerning older persons.</p>

From the 1980s onwards, there has been a general transformation in social policy in line with the transformation of the welfare state worldwide. While the neoliberal restructuring of capital and the state has initiated this transformation in the 1980s, neoliberal globalization and competitiveness pressures upon the competition states have accelerated this process through necessitating the reordering of priorities around policies that pursue market ascendancy. As a result, the international governance framework has been reshaped in a way that aims to separate economic policy from the political influences of the governments and to provide capital a &lsquo / protected domain&rsquo / , which refers to &ldquo / new constitutionalism&rdquo / . On the other hand, the Europeanization process can be described as the extension of new constitutionalism in the EU level / therefore, it reshapes the social policy understanding through confining it with the boundaries of the EU economy. The thesis attempts to explain the processes of neoliberal restructuring, new constitutionalism and Europeanization to provide a theoretical framework to the analysis of the social security reform in Turkey. It aims to examine the impact of the processes of new constitutionalism and Europeanization on the social security reform and to analyze the reform process taking into consideration class relations and, then, to make a critical analysis of the transformation.

The aim of this study is to analyse the impacts of the social security system reform performed in Turkey within the

Evaluation of private pension funds in Lithuania Final work of University Postgraduate Studies, 84 pages, 22 figures, 11 tables, 85 references, 14 appendix, Lithuanian language. KEY WORDS: pensions, social security, pension reform, private pension funds. Research object – Private pension funds in Lithuania Research aim – to evaluate private pension funs in Lithuania. Objectives: 1)specify the concept of private pension funds. 2)perform theoretic the analysis of social insurance models and estimate their potential use in the practice of private pension funds. 3)estimate potential ways of sponsorship and administration of pension funds. 4)frame the methodology of evaluation of private pension funds. 5)evaluate private pension funs in Lithuania according to the prepared methodology. Research methods: the analysis and synthesis of scientific literature, logical analysis and synthesis, comparable analysis, structural comparative analysis, the analysis and synthesis of statistical information, graphic methods of modeling, method of rating.

Six out of every ten children in South Africa are living in poverty. This situation is aggravated by the AlDS pandemic. The pandemic is also the cause of a generation of AlDS orphans and as a consequence a lot of pressure is put on society's resources. Although the fundamental rights of children are entrenched in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, the current legal and administrative framework is not being implemented effectively in order to realise these rights. The Constitutional Court has adjudicated upon several matters regarding the realisation of socio-economic rights, thereby confirming that socio-economic rights are indeed justiciable. This research is specifically concerned with the realisation of children's right to have access to health care as entrenched in sections 27 and 28(l)(c) of the Constitution. Read with section 7(2) of the Constitution, this right places negative as well as positive obligations on the state to respect, protect, promote and fulfil children's right to have access to health care. Children's right to health care are however dependent on the internal limitations contained in section 27(2) of the Constitution which states that the state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation of these rights. Having ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the state is further bound to recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health. Parties to the CRC shall also strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services. Good health is dependent on more than a mere right to have access to health care. In order to ensure the highest attainable standard of health for all children, it is necessary that the available services are affordable and accessible on an equitable basis. Access to health care should be seen as part of a more comprehensive social protection package to ensure a minimum standard of living, consistent with the value of human dignity in our Constitution. In order to achieve this, the fragmented health care system which existed before 1994 and which was mainly a result of the previous dispensation of oppression and racial discrimination, had to be transformed in order to reach the ideal of improving the quality of life of all citizens as contained in the preamble of the Constitution. Ten years after the inception of the new constitutional dispensation, it can be said that the government is making progress with the transformation of the health system and making it accessible to all people, including children. After extensive research on the legislative and other measures that the government has implemented in order to realise children's right to access to health care, the following conclusions has been reached: State policies regarding health care are taking account of the needs of children as a vulnerable group of society and it can be said to be reasonable in the formulation thereof. Regarding the implementation of these policies, much remains to be done to ensure that the benefits thereof reach the children, especially more vulnerable groups such as street children and child-headed households - a common occurrence with the high prevalence of HIVIAIDS in South Africa. The enactment of the National Health Act 61 of 2003 is still awaited although it has already been signed. This legislation provides a national framework of norms and standards regarding the health care system and it is mainly based on the rights of patients. A new Children's Bill [B32 - 20031 has been introduced to parliament. The bill deals extensively with the rights of children as contained in the Constitution and also aims to give effect to governments' obligations in terms of the CRC. The enactment of the bill should be given priority, although measures should be implemented to ensure that health care services are also accessible to children who are not assisted by adults such as child-headed households. The allocation of public funds should be considered in order to provide better social assistance to families in dire need but mechanisms to ensure that children benefit from social grants must be implemented. Many of these grants are being abused by parents which means that although the grants are available, the money is not always spent to better the plight of the children. This is especially important in the light of the fact that the primary obligation to take care of children vests in the parents. The courts and especially the Constitutional Court, has taken their role in realising socio-economic rights seriously and very important guidelines has been formulated regarding the reasonableness of legislative and other measures in this regard. After the Khosa-case it should be said that although the courts are allowed to overstep the boundaries of separation of powers, they should not rewrite these boundaries by not taking appropriate account of the availability of financial resources. This also applies to the executive and legislature which should act more effectively to implement the court's decisions. The Human Rights Commission is playing an important role with regard to the realisation of socio-economic rights by monitoring and evaluating the implementation of government programmes and legislation. The Commission also provides valuable guidelines with regard to the realisation of socio-economic rights in the form of annual reports submitted to parliament. It is submitted that the Commission should however consider to define minimum core obligations of socio-economic rights since the Commission is better equipped to do this than the courts are. / Thesis (LL.M. (Public Law))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2005.