South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994 led to the birth of a new political era which also brought constitutional guarantees for children in conflict with the law; one of the most important being section 28(1)(g) of the Constitution which provides that a child can only be detained as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time. Despite this provision, past sentencing practice has shown an over-reliance on the use of custodial sentences. This could largely be attributed to the tug-of-war between the legislature and the courts about the applicability of the minimum sentencing legislation on children between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. With the promulgation of the Child Justice Act, renewed emphasis has been placed on the desirability to keep children out of prison. To achieve this purpose, diversion of children is now a central feature of the child justice system. Should a matter however proceed to trial, the Act provides for a wide range of alternative sentencing options that can be imposed on children. The purpose of this dissertation is to establish to what extent the courts make use of these alternatives to imprisonment, especially in cases where children committed very serious offences such as murder and rape. This dissertation concludes that, although alternative sentences are appropriate sentences for serious offences, courts still impose custodial sentences for these types of offences, and that the seriousness of the offence is the most important aggravating factor tipping the scale in favour of the imposition of custodial sentences. The growing number of young people in already overcrowded South African prisons is a cause for concern, said the new Department of Correctional Services (DCS) Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula on Tuesday. Mapisa-Nqakula, accompanied by her deputy, Hlengiwe Mkhize, was visiting the Boksburg Correctional Centre on their fourth leg of their regional visits to listen and familiarize themselves with correctional services. She was shocked to find a number of young people, some aged 15, being held in the Boksburg prison for serious crimes. Boksburg houses 554 juveniles, most of them serious offenders serving long sentences, including life terms. Mapisa-Nqakula said she was becoming aware of the reality of a South African society that produced young people who commit serious crimes. […] Mapisa-Nqakula said the magnitude of the prisons problem was beyond correctional services. It required society to take responsibility for rehabilitation. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Procedural Law / unrestricted

After three hundred and forty-two years of colonialism and apartheid, South Africans of all walks of life experienced their first democratic elections in 1994. Now, as the country is at the precipice of the 5th democratic elections, it has known no government other than the African National Congress (ANC). The ANC has had landslide victories at the ballot box and always managed to secure an electoral vote of around 66%. These victories have not been by accident and have been carefully managed through an Alliance Pact with the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). The nature of the Alliance has infiltrated and influenced the character of contemporary South African public administration. This study postulates vigorously that an alliance is not a coalition, but rather a partnership of ideological semblance and political decorum. This is most significantly expressed through the National Democratic Revolution (NDR). The study further elucidates the notion that the NDR remains the main political artery of the ANC and is seminal in the policy debates and critical platforms for each of the Alliance Partners. The study affirms that irrespective of this convergence of ideology, there is periodic divergence on the leadership role of the ANC viz a viz that of the Alliance as the strategic centre for policy and governance issues. However, the ANC has over the years successfully challenged this assertion and through practice, led the Alliance in a politically driven manner that is predicated on consultation, due diligence and functional purpose. However, any member of the SACP or COSATU who desires to be part of parliament or the executive is required to be a member of the ANC. This, the study asserts, is the new formation of a political partnership. The study adumbrates that the SACP (even though it is registered as a political party with the Independent Electoral Commission) and COSATU do not contest elections separately. As part of the agreement, only the ANC contests elections and as such leads the Alliance. While COSATU and the SACP provide advice through Alliance structures on the deployment of cadres in the public service, the deployment committee is an ANC structure and the final decisions in regard to deployment resides with the ANC. This study has reinterpreted the dialogue within the Tripartite Alliance and how this has moulded the political nomenclature of the ANC, and the solidified impact on the way in which public administration is affected and effected in South Africa and vice versa. The study presents with equanimity how the practice, for example, of dual membership of two political organisations (ANC and SACP) enriches the public service and the policy-making process in a developmental state. It furthermore points to the imperative for a clear underlying ideology (as provided for through the NDR) and certainty as to who leads in such an arrangement. This study finds that it is through the Alliance structures that individual leaders within the Governing Party (ANC) are held to account for their actions – and after a hundred years of existence, the ANC and Alliance structures have managed to address the challenges of time, the pressures of political stress and the coalition of a “broad-based political church”. The logic of maintaining this political marriage and developmental triangulation, and also interpreting the essence of consolidating party manifestos to its membership, and further to preserving democratic principles, while at the same time translating this into the action of good governance in South Africa, is complex, yet manageable. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / am2013 / School of Public Management and Administration / unrestricted

Thesis (MPA.) -- University of Limpopo, 2018 / This study analyses the national election manifestos of the African National Congress on the subject of service delivery between 1994 and 2014. One of the arguments advanced in this thesis and corroborated in the theory of democratization by elections is that elections play an important role in the struggle for better governance and democracy. The election manifestos, in this regard, serve as instruments of ensuring accountability to the voters as well as gauging the performance of those in government. The party in government must implement its election manifestos; otherwise it must face electoral consequences through a democratic election process. However, there is a view aptly sustained in the study that elections are at times not a reliable or credible measure of a democratic outcome because many voters do not have the necessary knowledge to make rational choices in order to counteract the effects of poor or lack of implementation of election manifestos regarding service delivery. Therefore, as cautioned in the thesis, conscious public participation will remain an empty slogan if the majority of the electorate is left and forgotten languishing in poverty and arrogance. The sustainability of participation by citizens is hugely compromised in an environment infested with rampant corruption and runaway impunity. The study followed an interpretivist paradigm with a qualitative approach. ANC members in four villages –Duthuni, Tshisaulu, Ha-Mushavhanamadi and Ha-Ratshiedana (ward 35, Thulamela Municipality) were purposively targeted as the research population for the study. For practical reason, not all members of the ANC in the villages were reached to participate in the study. Ultimately, 42 members of the ANC in the villages formed the research sample. Data collection techniques used were face-to-face interviews, semi-structured questionnaire and document review (data triangulation). The rationale for using data triangulation in the study was to ensure that the weaknesses of a single data collection strategy were minimized and to ensure that the strategies complemented and verified one another. A total of 12 interviews were conducted, 30 questionnaires were administered and five ANC national election manifestos were perused. Three qualitative data analysis strategies were adopted, namely, conversation analysis, discourse analysis and content analysis. Analysis and interpretation of qualitative data consisted of words and observations and not numbers or statistics because the researcher did not want to quantify nor generate numerical data for purposes of statistical analysis.