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Includes bibliographical references. / Labour law is premised on the paradigm of a full-time, indefinite and bilateral employment relationship between employer and employee. Increasingly, this standard employment relationship model is being undermined by the proliferation of non-standard forms of work as employers seek greater labour market flexibility. These forms of work have been driven by three processes, namely casualisation (the engagement of workers on a fixed-term, casual or part-time basis), externalisation via commodification of the employment relationship (the engagement of workers in terms of a commercial contract, which excludes labour law from the relationship) and externalisation via intermediation (the use of intermediaries such as subcontractors). This study focuses on a work arrangement or practice referred to as contracting work out to self-employed workers. This involves contracting work out to individual workers who in turn employ other workers to assist them. The study considers the use of this practice in South Africa, where it emerged in the 1990s. It examines empirical research on the practice in the mining, clothing and construction sectors, and in relation to truck drivers. South African employers have argued that this practice advances government's small business and black economic empowerment policies.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / This study examines the protection of migrant workers in Tanzania, a country which, in terms of current migration discourse, plays a threefold role, since it is a sending country, a transit country, and a receiving country. The study examines the adequacy of the laws that protect the rights of workers who leave their countries to take up employment in Tanzania. The national regulatory framework on labour migration is evaluated by using international, regional and sub-regional legal instruments that provide the standards for the protection of migrant workers. Comparative best practices from various countries are also described in order to examine and identify the gaps in the current legal and institutional framework. The study examines four key areas, namely, the admission of migrant workers and their access to the labour market, conditions of employment, freedom of association, and social security rights. These areas are examined by means of a thorough contextual, legal and policy analysis and an empirically based validation from which various observations and conclusions are made.

Decision-making is the most critical role that company directors have to play in the life of a company that they are appointed to manage. South African law (in s66 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008, the Act) has now followed the global trend of recognising that directors have original authority/mandate to manage or direct company affairs or business. A director is accorded (by law) powers to exercise to enable him or her to fulfil the functions of that office. Decision-making, which is not an easy task, is critical to enterprise efficiency and advancement of the national economy. Directors have to make business decisions, at times under imperfect circumstances and while confronting tensions inherent in the corporate form. Not least of these tensions is the pressure to balance the profit maximisation drive from shareholders and accountability for how the directors exercise the powers at their disposal. Despite pressures involved in decision-making, the law requires that directors should exercise their powers in the best interests of the corporation. Thus the Act has attempted to put mechanisms in place to ensure that directors' freedom to manage corporations has to be necessarily constrained and balanced by the need for them to be accountable. The thesis focuses on the duty of care, skill and diligence on one hand (standard of conduct), and the business judgment rule (BJR- standard of review) on the other. These are two mechanisms put in place by the Act to ensure a balance between directors' freedom to manage and accountability. The thesis seeks to answer the key question whether the Act has made standards of care, skill and diligence clearer, more accessible and enforceable than before in light of the Act's adoption of BJR. The thesis analyses the duty of care, skill under s76(3)(c) and BJR under s76(4) in light of the context of law reform (that is the purposes of law reform) and international experiences. In this thesis, an appraisal of the positives brought about by the codification of the duty of care and the adoption of BJR into statute for the first time in SA is given. It is argued that while some purposes of law reform have been achieved, the Act has not achieved the purpose of clarity of standards. For example, the analysis reveals unfortunate omissions and worrying ambiguities in the formulation of standards of care, skill and diligence in s76(3)(c). While giving in-depth analysis of the scope and policy rationale of BJR under the Act, the thesis further notes that the characterisation of BJR in s76(4)(a) as a standard of conduct as opposed to standard of review is problematic. It has also been argued that the BJR is not properly aligned to international standards. Clear amendments to the Act have been suggested to improve clarity of standards and the law in s76(3)(c) and s76(4)(a).

Includes bibliographical references. / The absence of strong supranational institutions and the failure of states to comply with their integration obligations feature prominently in almost every discussion on economic integration in Africa. There seems to be a consensus that without strong supranational institutions to enforce compliance, economic integration in Africa may not succeed. This thesis takes a different approach to the discussion on compliance. The thesis argues that the failure of African states to comply with their integration obligations is not necessarily a function of deliberate and blatant disobedience for the norms of economic integration. Rather, there are other systemic challenges which impede the ability of African states to comply with their obligation. To resolve these challenges and ensure compliance, the thesis suggests that African states need to continuously engage in a discursive process wherein the norms of economic integration are constantly iterated and given authoritative interpretation. Furthermore, institutional, technical and infrastructural capacity needs to be developed across the continent in order to create favourable conditions for the implementation of the norms of integration. To this end, more attention needs be paid at the regional and national level to initiatives which improve good governance and aid the internalisation of the norms of economic integration among African states.

Includes bibliographical references. / Technology has impacted taxation and the manner in which it is effectively imposed. While this thesis submits that VAT is the eTax solution, income tax issues relating to 'residence' versus 'source' have been addressed. A comparative analysis is made in respect of the application income tax and VAT principles to eCommerce transactions.

Includes bibliographical references / Section 165 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 introduces the new statutory derivative action. The section confers a pivotal function on the courts as gatekeepers to the derivative action, with an important filtering or screening function to weed out applications for derivative actions that are frivolous, vexatious or without merit. The vital judicial discretion to grant leave to an applicant to bring a derivative action entails a tension between two equally important policy objectives. A proper balance between these two underpinning policy objectives depends on the appropriate judicial interpretation and application of the three vague, general and open-textured criteria or gateways for the grant of leave to institute a derivative action. The courts have been entrusted by s 165 to flesh out the details, the contours, the ambit and the scope of these criteria. This crucially gives the courts a dominant and a decisive role in shaping the effectiveness of the new statutory derivative action. This thesis makes an original contribution to knowledge in three main respects. First, this thesis focuses on the three guiding criteria for leave, and their many nuances, interpretations and applications in certain foreign jurisdictions that have exerted an influence on the provisions of s 165. Based on experience garnered from Australian, Canadian and New Zealand law, as well as the United Kingdom and the USA, guidelines are suggested for the approach that the South African courts should adopt to the three preconditions for a derivative action. Secondly, it is submitted that the real weakness in s 165 lies in the rebuttable presumption in s 165(7) and (8), which contains a fatal flaw that renders the remedy defective and calls for legislative amendment. Pending such amendment, proposals are suggested for the proper judicial approach in the meantime to the troublesome presumption. These proposals are supported by both reasoned argument and original research on experience in certain foreign jurisdictions, particularly the USA. Thirdly, and equally importantly, a framework is suggested in this thesis for the proper exercise of the judicial discretion to make orders of costs, which is known to have plagued minority shareholders wishing to bring derivative proceedings against miscreant directors who have wronged the company.

Includes bibliographical references. / In 1926, the South African Parliament introduced a procedure known as judicial management. It was housed in the Companies Act 46 of 1926 (hereafter Companies Act 1926). The purpose of judicial management was to enable a failing company to restructure thus providing an alternative to liquidation. Companies play an important role in an economy and their demise affects not only creditors but also different groups of people that have a working relationship with the company. These include employees, suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders. The legislature recognised the need to save this relationship in as far as was possible. They attempted to do so by amongst other things, providing for judicial management. Judicial management provided breathing space to companies on the brink of collapse in order to allow them to re-organise their affairs. It tried to achieve this by providing for a moratorium against creditors, divesting the control of the company from previous management who assumedly had run it aground, and by providing for the appointment of a judicial manager who attempted to turn the company around. Due to several factors, judicial management was not much of a success as will be discussed in this paper. Some of the reasons are related to weaknesses in the legislation, the attitude of the courts and in my view, the lack of local precedents initially, for the courts to follow (seeing that judicial management was the first of its kind in South African law) as well as companies themselves, who might have lacked an idea of how the procedure was to be utilised. In order to address the shortfalls in the legislation, a number of amendments were made through the years. One such shortfall was the fact that many companies that applied for judicial management had no real chance of rehabilitation and only did so to avoid a liquidation that was subject to the winding-up provisions of the 1926 Act. Some notable amendments that were made include those in 1932 under s 196(1) that provided for a moratorium to be placed on all actions against the company while it was undergoing judicial management. Section 197(A) introduced the concept of voidable dispositions as it applied in insolvency law. This provision aimed to ensure that companies did not apply for judicial management because they did not want the company to be wound up subject to the rules of insolvency law.

Includes bibliographical references.