For many years, medical malpractice claims have threatened the effective governance of health care sectors the world over. South Africa is not exempt from the effects of this phenomenon. The effects of increasing medical malpractice claims and their associated costs threaten the effective governance of the private and public health care sectors, which results in a vicious cycle of resource depletion, poor service delivery and constantly increasing rates of medical malpractice incidents. This research aims to add to the body of work in South Africa concerning the adverse effects of medical malpractice claims. This dissertation provides a theoretical discussion on whether periodic payments and alternative dispute resolution are satisfactory responses to combat both the rising cost of damages and the procedural backlogs present within the law of delict and medical malpractice litigation in South Africa to achieve comprehensive reform in the law of delict. Ultimately, this dissertation examines the practical legal issues that have led to the current medical malpractice crisis in South Africa. The dissertation examines the role of aspirational health care policies, goals and agendas (specifically section 27 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa) that have been implemented on a national level, and it also examines the ability to implement comprehensive reform to address the medical malpractice crisis to hopefully break the vicious cycle that is keeping South Africa from achieving its national and constitutional health care goals.

This thesis is about analysing the political rhetoric of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), in overseeing the implementation of South Africa's National Development Plan (NDP).1 The study seeks to define the underlying reasons which, compound slow policy implementation, particularly as exacerbated by weakened and misaligned policy oversight debates in the NCOP. This study is particularly important because the NDP is the long-term vision and development plan of the governing African National Congress's vision 2030. Findings from the National Planning Commission's Diagnostic Report which, was released in June 2011, indicated that “a failure to implement policies and an absence of broad partnerships have been identified as some of the main reasons for the slow progress in implementing the country's transformation policies.” 2 In addition to these prevailing conditions, “it is also imperative to note that South Africa had found itself in the middle of a technical recession and had still been grappling with the impact and aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, at the time when the NDP was adopted in 2012. 3 ” “The global financial crisis had a dire impact on the South African labour market, resulting in the shedding of almost 1 million jobs over 2009 and 2010, reflecting longer term structural problems.”4 The NDP was hence developed in part, to address the impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, alongside growing and prevailing social and economic challenges in South Africa. Inherited inequalities had been exacerbated, in part by the fact that Parliament and particularly the NCOP, had not been able to adequately give full effect to its three sphere oversight role as underpinned by its cooperative governance and intergovernmental relations constitutional mandate. Consequently, this has led to an inability to meaningfully oversee and accelerate the implementation of South Africa's transformation policies. The study will place strategic focus on how the quality of arguments communicated in the NDP could either catalyse or impede the oversight and accountability work of the NCOP, thereby inadvertently decelerating the implementation of the NDP. The study also provides an overarching perspective of South Africa's broader rhetorical situation, which manifest as exogenous shocks within the NCOP's operating environment. The overarching rhetorical situation is also postulated as one of the key determinants, impacting how the NCOP approaches and shapes its policy debates. Specific emphasis will also be placed on the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) in the fifth parliament (particularly the 2015 appropriations budget vote process) and how the second chamber of Parliament has for purposes of executing its constitutional mandate of three sphere oversight and accountability, interpreted, synthesized, and as a result executed its oversight functions, based on the rhetoric of the NDP in relation to the outcomes in the NDP that focus on the economy, employment, and the NDP's commitment to building a capable developmental state. This study is of great importance and is necessitated by the imperative to ensure that the NCOP matures in its role as construct of South Africa's constitutional democracy, which is tasked with the important responsibility of undertaking three-sphere oversight to oversee the implementation of key development policy constructs and development catalysing legislation, as guided by the NDP.

The South African Government has an interest in ensuring that South Africa derives benefit from the exploitation of its natural resources. In the South African mineral and mining industry, this interest extends to the proceeds acquired from participation therein. Participation in the mineral and mining industry, however, is high risk, capital intensive and often has long lead times from exploration to production. Due to these factors, exploiting South Africa's mineral resources with recourse to purely domestic financing, expertise and/or equipment is challenging, if not impossible. Therefore, the industry requires capital, investment, and input from foreign sources, namely by way of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). To ensure that foreign participation in its mineral and mining industry allows for domestic benefit, and that said benefit is enhanced in accordance with its policy objectives, the South African Government has formulated and imposed Local Content Requirements (LCRs) for the industry. This dissertation analyses the question of whether the LCRs formulated and imposed in the South African mineral and mining industry promote the attraction of FDI. The argument made is that the overarching factor influencing the decision to invest in the South African mineral and mining industry is certainty. Pursuant thereto, this dissertation argues that, as presently formulated and implemented, the LCRs applicable to the South African mineral and mining industry do not ensure certainty and, accordingly, do not promote the attraction of FDI. In the light of this conclusion, this dissertation offers two recommendations to the South African Government to enhance certainty in respect of the LCRs applicable to the South African mineral and mining industry for the purpose of promoting the attraction of FDI.

Intra-state distribution of monetary and non-monetary benefits from resource extraction among multiple entities is a subject of considerable interest in natural resource law. Drawing mainly but not exclusively from international human rights and environmental law, this study explores the nature, core content and models of benefit sharing in the extractive sector in Kenya. The study establishes that central to the push for benefit sharing is the desire to realise justice – commutative, distributive or compensatory – for resource-host communities and regions. Kenya is an ideal case study related to benefit sharing because of its recent adoption of multi-level governance known as devolution. From this lense of multi-level governance, the thesis assesses whether such a system aids or impedes the effective distribution of resource benefits to host regions and communities, a factor critical to mitigating resource conflict. The thesis examines Kenya's legal regime governing benefit sharing from the colonial period to the present. This historical review demonstrates the significant impact that Kenya's Constitution adopted in 2010 has produced in entrenching benefit sharing in the norms and institutions of the state. It attributes the enhanced legal and policy recognition of benefit sharing not merely to the text of the Constitution but to the role played by semi-autonomous territorial units, known as counties, in shaping emerging norms and standards on benefit-sharing through a wide range of strategies including legislation, litigation and information dissemination. Where countiestake a proactive role in shaping the manner in which resource costs and benefits are distributed in law, responsive legislative outcomes can be realised. Conversely, where counties fail to seize their institutional position to aid resource impacted communities' engagement with policy opportunity structures, national institutions and resource operators are likely to default to historically exclusionary and paternalistic approaches to benefit sharing. The legal and institutional gaps evident in Kenya's mineral and petroleum legislative regime are largely a function of this dynamic. In examining the response of two resource-host counties in Kenya-Turkana and Kwalethe study demonstrates the need for counties to make pro-community policy choices in ensuring that constitutionally mandated monetary and non-monetary benefits are accessed at the local level. The study validates the utility of benefit sharing as an enabler of stable resource development environment especially when its impact is experienced through local economic development within host regions and communities.

In this dissertation I identify various sources of legal indeterminacy and scrutinize the functions that indeterminacy can play in law. In particular, I focus on the authority of indeterminate law: how it can be that laws of which it is not clear which obligations they impose, nonetheless impose obligations. I argue that there are more sources of legal indeterminacy than is commonly assumed in the literature, and that the role that context plays in the occurrence, functionality and authority of indeterminate legal norms has been largely overlooked. I argue further that indeterminate legal norms can be authoritatively binding just so long as we accept that the nature of the obligation imposed by the norm changes according to whether the legal norm generates a hard case as applied to a particular context.

The refugee experience is such that it is common for family members to be separated from each other before or during their flight from the country of origin. In the face of persecution, families adopt strategies, some of which may necessitate temporary separation: sending a politically active adult into hiding, helping a son escape forcible recruitment by militia forces, sending abroad a woman at risk of attack or abduction. Family members may be forced to take different routes out of the country or to leave at different times as opportunities permit. It is therefore also common for refugees to be unaware, often for long periods, whether a family member is alive or dead. The commonality of the experience does not in any way detract from the pain and anxiety felt by those separated from close family members.

The National Review of the LLB by the Higher Education Qualifications Committee of the Council on Higher Education from 2015 to 2018 underscored the dire need for LLB curriculum change at South African universities. Not only did the Review call for ‘wideranging curriculum reform', but it also recommended that the minimum duration of the four-year LLB be extended by an additional year. Most institutions responded with minor changes to their LLB curricula to meet the demands of the National Review of the LLB and to remain accredited. However, a comprehensive review of their LLB curricula may be required to improve the quality of their graduates in the long run. Furthermore, should it be decided to extend the LLB by one year, all universities offering a four-year LLB will have to engage in comprehensive curriculum change by developing new five-year LLB curricula. Although curriculum change management models (hereafter CCMMs) play an important role in revising or reflecting on HE curriculum change, no model was available for law curriculum change. The study focuses on developing a change management model for facilitating comprehensive curriculum change of the LLB at universities in South Africa. A mixed methods research design was adopted to achieve the purpose of the study. Based on a literature review, a Draft LLB CCMM comprising 61 prescriptive outlines (hereafter POs) was proposed in Phase 1. The Draft LLB CCMM was used to compile a structured questionnaire in Phase 2 of the study. Staff members (n=28) who had participated in a comprehensive LLB curriculum change process at the University of the Free State (hereafter UFS) quantitatively rated the importance of the POs for facilitating LLB curriculum change in South African circumstances. They also rated the compliance of the UFS curriculum change process with these POs. The quantitative evaluation of the POs of the Draft LLB CCMM in terms of importance suggested that all POs should be included in the Final LLB CCMM. A critical reflection on the initiatives and practices implemented during the UFS curriculum change process led to identifying recommended practices for those POs that met the minimum quantitative compliance criteria. Reflective appraisal, the quantitative feedback from questionnaire participants and consulting appropriate literature assisted in identifying what could have been done differently for those POs that did not meet the minimum compliance criteria. Also, a focus group discussion in Phase 3 shed light on why some POs did not meet the minimum compliance criteria. In the focus group, the discussions on the strengths and weaknesses of the UFS curriculum change process led to the identification of additional POs and recommended practices in the Final LLB CCMM. The quantitative and qualitative findings in Phases Two and Three were integrated to propose the Final LLB CCMM. The study contributes towards curriculum change theory building. The Final LLB CCMM breaks down the challenging, multifaceted and complex nature of comprehensive curriculum change into manageable processes, functions, POs and recommended practices. Although the CCMM was specifically developed for comprehensive LLB curriculum change, specific processes, functions, or POs of the model can be adapted to permit faculties to engage in minor or piecemeal LLB curriculum changes. Also, the CCMM can be adapted to facilitate curriculum change in other disciplines.

Zugl.: Bern, Universiẗat, Diss., 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2009. / Title from title page (Digital Archive@GSU, viewed July 21, 2010) Eric Freeman, committee chair; Donna Breault, committee member. Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-249).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.