24 results
Towards a Public Law Perspective on the Constitutional Law of Privacy in South Africa in the Age of Digitalization
- Firoz Cachalia, Jonathan Klaaren
-
- Journal:
- Journal of African Law / Volume 68 / Issue 1 / February 2024
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 06 November 2023, pp. 89-107
- Print publication:
- February 2024
-
- Article
-
- You have access Access
- Open access
- HTML
- Export citation
-
Rapid and radical digitalization and the “fourth industrial revolution” are generally associated with progress, but also pose significant risks to privacy rights and democracy. This article proposes a public law reading of the South African Constitution to respond to the dangers posed by disruptive technological change, in light of the constitution's rights-orientated and rule-of-law-centred approach to interpreting the right to privacy. It examines the legal resources available in the South African legal system and, specifically, its constitution. The article emphasizes the way South African privacy jurisprudence infuses the right to privacy with the value of dignity, and how this allows an interpretation that sees privacy as a public, as well as private, right. The article concludes that this rights jurisprudence, alongside the constitutional principles of proportionality, subsidiarity and supremacy, has established a working foundation to articulate the right to privacy in a way that is suitable in the digital age.
Chapter 2 - The Threat to the ‘Open’ Universities
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 20-36
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The Government’s intrusion into the autonomy of the universities during the 1950s was part of its plans for total educational apartheid. The Bantu Education Act of 1953 enabled the Department of Native Affairs to take control of all African schools. The religious missions were coerced by a threat of suspension of all state financial aid into handing their schools over to the control of the Department of Native Affairs. A syllabus specifically for Bantu schools was designed in terms of the notorious statement by the then Minister of Native Affairs, Dr Hendrick Verwoerd (later to become Prime Minister) when he opened the debate on the Act in parliament:
Racial relations cannot improve if the wrong type of education is given to Natives. They cannot improve if the result of Native Education is the creation of frustrated people who as a result of the education they receive have expectations in life which circumstances in South Africa do not allow to be fulfilled immediately, when it creates people who are trained for professions not open to them, when there are people who have received a form of cultural training which strengthens their desire for white-collar occupations to such an extent that there are more such people than openings available. Therefore, good relations are spoiled when the correct education is not given…
What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? What is the use of subjecting a Native child to a curriculum which in the first instance is traditionally European? I just want to remind Honourable Members that if the Native inside South Africa today in any kind of school in existence is being taught to expect that he will live his life under a policy of equal rights, he is making a big mistake.
I have read these words many times and still shudder at their cold callousness. But Verwoerd meant every word he uttered that day, and he and his minions set about implementing them with zealous fervour. When Verwoerd left the Department of Native Affairs to become Prime Minister, and after his assassination, his successors continued in the same brutal direction, possibly with declining conviction, but until almost the end, in the mid-1980s, with unflagging hope.
Preface
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp xix-xxvii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In May 1948 the National Party of Dr D F Malan came into power in South Africa on the basis of its apartheid policy. In February 1990, Mr F W de Klerk, the leader of the same party, announced in Parliament that the apartheid era was to end. As I write this, a year has passed since the first democratic election on 27 April 1994. The country is ruled now by a multiparty Government of National Unity under the Presidency of Mr Nelson Mandela, the leader of the majority party, the African National Congress.
During the apartheid era, the National Party Government, in their attempt to entrench political rights and economic privileges in the hands of the whites, inflicted injuries of the most abominable kind on black South Africans. In the process, the country earned international condemnation and was isolated and rejected by the world community.
These events did not leave the universities of South Africa untouched. During the apartheid era, the residential universities could be divided into three categories. There were the English-language so-called ‘open universities’ – Cape Town (UCT), Natal, Rhodes and Wits – whose doors were, at least in theory, open to all who were academically qualified for admission. From the promulgation of the Extension of University Education Act 45 of 1959 until 1984, the admission of black students was severely restricted. The second group of South African universities included the Afrikaans-medium institutions – Pretoria, Potchefstroom, Rand Afrikaans University, Orange Free State, Stellenbosch and, despite its nominal ‘dual language’ designation, Port Elizabeth, all of which supported the Government and apartheid education. The third category comprised the universities that were the creation of apartheid tertiary education, established to provide separate institutions for African, Coloured and Indian South Africans. They were rigidly run by administrations appointed by the Government, whose educational policies they implemented with fervour. Those established for Africans were located in areas so remote that they were referred to contemptuously as ‘bush’ colleges. Today, most of them are under enlightened and progressive administrators who are strongly committed to transforming their universities in such a way as to redress the apartheid legacy, and are referred to with some pride as the historically black universities, or HBUs.
Chapter 8 - Challenge to the Government
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 149-200
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In the course of the turbulent 1980s five South African universities – Cape Town, Natal, Rhodes, Western Cape and Wits – were involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in two major confrontations with the Government on important issues of both principle and practice. In both instances, after debilitating effort on the part of these universities, the authorities backed down. There were pitifully few occasions during its forty-six years of power on which the Nationalist Government responded to public pressure on liberal issues and these two episodes are political landmarks in the regime’s retreat from apartheid. The first concerned the ‘Quota Bill’ and the second was the threat of financial sanctions posed by F W de Klerk as Minister of National Education in his attempts to coerce the universities into clamping down on political activity on their campuses.
The ‘Quota Bill’
In July 1982, Dr Gerrit Viljoen, then Minister of National Education, informed the Committee of University Principals (CUP) that the Government was considering amendments to the Universities Act (Act 61 of 1955 as amended). Section 4 related to a proposed quota system to be instituted in 1984, which would regulate the admission of black students to the so-called white universities. This could be done by inserting an enabling clause to that effect in the Act and by requesting Parliament to approve such an amendment. The Minister’s justification of these measures was that he believed they could lead to more flexibility when universities made their decisions regarding admissions.
Du Plessis had spoken against the proposal at the CUP, stating that the University would not wish to implement a racially discriminatory system on behalf of the Government and that the system contained no advantages for black students. The concept of racial quotas for the admission of students was anathema to the University at that time, and an extended and bitter battle followed to persuade the Minister to withdraw this section of the Bill. Attitudes were now very different from those in 1953 when the University had itself imposed a racial quota for the admission of black students into the Faculty of Medicine.
Frontmatter
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp i-iv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 3 - Activists Under Pressure
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 37-60
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The struggle against apartheid education widened into a battle against the implementation of apartheid in general and the draconian methods used by the authorities to suppress almost all forms of extra-parliamentary opposition. At first during the early 1970s, the great majority of student demonstrators at the English-language universities were white. As black student numbers increased during the 1980s, members of the black student movements predominated and frequently took the initiative in setting up the protests.
Harassment of student activists and demonstrators by Government supporters and the police was to become a feature of student protest. One of the first victims of this oppressive legislation was Mr Dennis Brutus, founder of the anti-apartheid South African Sports Association in 1958. In 1961 he had helped organise a national convention of coloured activists at Malmesbury in the Western Cape and this had led to his being banned. In 1962 he was elected to the SRC, but because of the banning, was unable to attend and participate in its meetings. The SRC appealed to Council to make representations to the Minister in this regard, but the Council was unsympathetic, arguing that Brutus was restricted in terms of a legal enactment.
The Government also resorted to a variety of sinister and covert methods to suppress student opposition to apartheid. One of these was the infiltration onto English-language campuses in the 1960s of student informers paid by the police to spy on their fellows. It was also discovered that plain clothes police and police photographers were attending student meetings. Although the police were the object of some considerable derision, the informers were taken very seriously. The attempts to intimidate students and to pay some to provide information, accurate or inaccurate, which may have led to the arrest and detention of some students, were strongly condemned by the administrations and staffs of the universities affected. Vice-Chancellor Bozzoli was particularly outspoken in his criticism of this kind of action.
On 15 December 1964 the University was informed that the appointment of Professor E R Roux, a long-serving member of the Department of Botany, would be terminated by the Minister of Justice on 1 February of the following year on the grounds that he was a listed Communist and was to be subjected to punitive restrictions.
Map
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp xxviii-xxviii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
WITS
- A University in the Apartheid Era
- Mervyn Shear
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia
-
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022
-
When the National Government assumed power in 1948, one of the earliest moves was to introduce segregated education. Its threats to restrict the admission of black students into the four 'open universities' galvanised the staff and students of those institutions to oppose any attempt to interfere with their autonomy and freedom to decide who should be admitted.
In subsequent years, as the regime adopted increasingly oppressive measures to prop up the apartheid state, opposition on the campuses, and in the country, increased and burgeoned into a Mass Democratic Movement intent on making the country ungovernable. Protest escalated through successive states of emergency and clashes with police on campus became regular events. Residences were raided, student leaders were harassed by security police and many students and some staff were detained for lengthy periods without recourse to the courts.
First published in 1996, WITS: A University in the Apartheid Era by Mervyn Shear tells the story of how the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS) adapted to the political and social developments in South Africa under apartheid. This new edition is published in the University's centenary year with a preface by Firoz Cachalia, one of Wits' student leaders in the 1980s. It serves as an invaluable historical resource on questions about the relationship between the University and the state, and on understanding the University's place and identity in a constitutional democracy.
Notes
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 282-305
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 6 - Wits and the First State of Emergency
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 91-120
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The United Democratic Front (UDF) was set up at a mass rally in Cape Town in August 1983 in response to the constitutional proposals for a tricameral system. The organisation grew rapidly to a membership of over two million. The UDF rejected the new constitution and campaigned vigorously among Coloureds and Indians to boycott the first election held in terms of the new dispensation. Opposition to the system from the African population was fierce, and there were widespread strikes and boycotts of schools.
The Government’s response to the unrest was to declare a state of emergency which took effect on 21 July 1985 and which led to a period of more intense oppression, together with abrogation of the Rule of Law, than had ever been experienced in the land. The police and military had wide powers and, protected by indemnity, were able to detain and interrogate people at will. Within a few months thousands of individuals had been detained. Hundreds of Wits students were affected in different ways.
Shortly after the declaration, four students and two members of the University staff were detained. Urgent representations for their release failed, and subsequently further detentions took place.
On 8 August 1985 Tober wrote a letter to the Director-General of the Department of Justice about the conditions under which the students and members of the academic staff were being detained in terms of the Public Safety Act of 1953. He referred to three specific and practical concerns relating to their physical and mental well-being. In terms of the regulations, detainees were not entitled to any reading matter except the Bible or other holy books and were not permitted to study or to enrol for any studies. Tober urged that the interpretation be reconsidered or the ruling changed as the academic progress of students was being hindered and their success in examinations jeopardised.
He also asked that lecturers be given access to reading material for bona fide study purposes. The University would supply the material, which could be scrutinised by whomsoever Government saw fit to delegate, and passed to detainees by the prison officials.
Chapter 11 - Epilogue
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 274-281
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
During 1990 I had taken the decision not to make myself available for reappointment when my second term as DVC expired at the end of that year and I was succeeded by Professor June Sinclair in January 1991. I was sad to leave the student affairs portfolio but was feeling stressed at the perpetual crisis management that the job entailed. There was very little time left for creative thinking about the development of student affairs at the University. Moreover, I wanted to have the opportunity of engaging in other activities while I was still feeling energetic enough to pursue them. Finally, I had often said that I wanted to go while people were still wanting me to stay, rather than hang on until I had lost all insight into my own incompetence.
I went through a series of warm and emotional farewell parties and early in 1991 my wife Caryll and I moved to Simon’s Town where we had built a holiday home sixteen years before and had enjoyed many happy and restorative vacations. I was not long out of my job and still revelling in my independence as a pensioner when I began to feel the withdrawal symptoms associated with ‘no longer being needed’. Nevertheless I was able to do some writing in my old discipline, go back to part-time teaching in the Oral Pathology Department of the University of the Western Cape, become involved in a little political activity and in assisting with the development of the Kwazulu-Natal tertiary institutions’ Regional Institutional Cooperation Project. And to write this book.
I had not intended to include any personal memoirs but have been persuaded to do so by several people who read early drafts of the manuscript. This was not easy and in writing about the events of the 1980s I hope that I have not tended to inflate my personal contribution. So many Wits people were involved during that turbulent decade as were students and dedicated staff at other South African educational institutions and I am very happy to have had the opportunity of being one of them.
Introduction
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp xxix-xxxvi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In August 1993, during what was possibly the most destructive week in its history, the Wits University community was riven by angry and often violent demonstrations by some members of the South African Students’ Congress (Sasco) which led to unprecedented and unfortunate polarisation among students and staff. The Sasco group was demonstrating essentially on three issues. The first was against a court interdict which the University had obtained in June 1993 against Sasco (National), Sasco (Wits) and certain individual members of those organisations prohibiting injury to staff and students; disruption of classes or other academic or administrative activities; occupation of, or impeding lawful access to, University premises; damage to property; and incitement of any person to commit any of these acts.
The other issues were a demand for the dissolution of the Council of the University and the establishment of a Transformation Forum ‘to deal with the structure of a new democratic Council, financial exclusions and the continuing racial bias in admissions …’ A later demand was for the release of the students detained by the police during demonstrations on the campus on 19 August 1993.3
As recently as March 1995 sporadic conflict between a relatively small group of Wits students and workers on the one hand and the university administration on the other, continued to unnerve the campus; and undisciplined vandalism and ‘trashing’ of the campus which were widely condemned, attracted lurid headlines in the newspapers and extensive coverage on radio and television. The issues were now no longer the struggle against the apartheid regime but questions relating to the high expectations of students in the post-apartheid era, such as financial aid, improved access to higher education and democratic and transparent university governance. All these issues were being taken up by students in many tertiary educational institutions throughout the country, but at Wits there was another contentious matter. University members of the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) were demonstrating for the reinstatement of some of their colleagues who had been dismissed after a disciplinary hearing had found them guilty of holding two members of the administrative staff hostage for nine hours until they were released by the police.
Chapter 7 - Resistance Escalates
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 121-148
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Student unrest on campus continued in the period leading up to the declaration of the second state of emergency on 12 June 1986. The BSS informed the University that it was unlikely that black students would attend lectures on 1 May (Labour Day), or on 16, 17 and 18 June, in recognition of Soweto Day. Although there was no official University policy on ‘making up lost time’, some lecturers rescheduled lectures which they were to have given on sensitive days. Others gave their lectures as scheduled, but repeated them at a later date. Yet others insisted on sticking to the timetable.
On 1 May, a number of students attended a May Day rally in Soweto. After the rally a bus containing about ninety students and some security guards was stopped outside Diepkloof, a suburb of Soweto by troops of the South African Defence Force who ordered the occupants off the bus and almost simultaneously smashed the front doors. Attempting to obey the instruction, the occupants were alighting as quickly as possible, but before many had had a chance to do so a teargas canister was fired into the bus. Terrified students broke the emergency exit window while more teargas was fired at them. Several were injured by broken glass, and many were overcome by teargas. No medical treatment was offered by the SADF, no attempt was made to question the students, and no explanation was given for the action. They were ordered to leave the area about forty-five minutes later.
The acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor R W Charlton, sent a telex to the Minister of Defence, General Magnus Malan, urging him to order an investigation of the incident with a view to taking disciplinary action against those responsible. Although he was able to give the Minister the registration number of one of three Casspirs involved, no action was taken. On 26 May 1988, fifty students and two security guards brought an action against Malan in which they claimed a total of R245 000 in damages. The SADF members denied that they had used teargas, claiming that they had wished only to search the bus for unlawful literature.
Contents
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp vii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
Chapter 1 - Racial Discrimination at Wits
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 1-19
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
In 1956 the Nationalist Government announced that it intended to prohibit the ‘open universities’ from admitting non-white students and to establish separate universities for these students in their ‘own areas’. The definition of the term ‘open universities’ as it applied to the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand was that ‘they admit non-white students as well as white students and aim, in all academic matters, at treating non-white students on a footing of equality with white students, and without segregation’.
In fact, the situation was not quite that clear. Wits University was not entirely ‘open’, even in respect of its academic admissions policy. The role of the University as a centre for liberal thought and criticism in South Africa during its early years and its policy regarding the admission of black students and the appointment of black staff during that period, have been documented by Professor Bruce Murray in the first volume of the official Wits history. He has pointed out that at its inception Wits’s admissions policies reflected the prejudices of the society to which it belonged. While it never officially adopted a policy of excluding students on grounds of race or colour, it was very hesitant to accept black students in any substantial numbers.
When a campaign was launched in 1916 to establish a university in Johannesburg it had been emphasised that the new university would be for ‘Europeans’. However, in his installation address as Principal in August 1919, J H Hofmeyr indicated that the new university’s policy should be to be open to all who possessed the necessary qualifications: ‘It should know no distinctions of class or wealth, race or creed.’
Regrettably, the new University’s Senate and Council were not prepared to be led along the liberal path suggested by their young Principal and Murray has indicated that in the 1920s and early 1930s these bodies seriously contemplated officially adopting a restrictive admissions policy when blacks – first Coloureds and then Indians and Africans – began to apply for admission. In 1925 Council decided to take legal advice when the University received a letter from a Mr Du Randt, who was not white, seeking admission for his son.
Foreword
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp ix-xvi
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The late Professor Mervyn Shear’s book, Wits: A University in the Apartheid Era, was first published in 1996. This was also the year in which the legal superstructure of the apartheid system was brought to an end and a new non-racial constitution for a democratic South Africa was adopted with great hopes for a more just future. I am honoured to write this preface to the republication of Professor Shear’s book, which was lovingly prepared through careful and rigorous research in the best traditions of truth-telling scholarship. I do so with a deep sense of responsibility to the Wits community, past and present.
The book begins with Shear’s tribute to ‘all those courageous students as well as those throughout South Africa who opposed apartheid tyranny in the face of harassment, intimidation and incarceration without trial’. It is appropriate that I begin this preface with a tribute to the author himself. Mervyn Shear became a courageous, clear minded and principled opponent of apartheid tyranny, as well as an advocate of a negotiated transition to a constitutional democracy. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor with the portfolio of student affairs, he gave unstinting support to staff and students protesting against apartheid, and was indefatigable in his commitment to defending their rights and well-being in the face of assaults, banning orders and detention without trial. He is remembered with a great deal of affection and respect by the student leadership of the turbulent 1980s, the period of his service as a senior and distinguished administrator at one of South Africa’s leading academic institutions.
Although a reading of the book reveals much about Shear’s character and opinions, its historical method is essentially documentary in the sense that it provides a record of facts from the beginnings of the university in 1919, although focusing on the apartheid era. It provides an invaluable resource to the present Wits community, and for the wider South African public, for reflection and deliberation on many of the questions that continue to engage us. Was the relationship between the university and the apartheid state one of resistance or accommodation, or both?
Chapter 10 - Transition to Democracy
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 257-273
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
1990 was not without political incident at Wits but the campus was very much more peaceful than it had been for many years. Ironically, the police clashed with students who went onto the streets on 2 February to celebrate De Klerk’s announcements in Parliament that day.
By the end of February, shortly after the start of the new academic year, a new direction in student politics had become apparent. As part of a nation-wide two-day period of mass action to protest against the crisis in education, the BSS and Sansco organised a class boycott at Wits. Anger was directed against the University administration with the BSS demanding a moratorium on all exclusions and the appointment of a commission of inquiry to investigate admissions and exclusions; an opportunity to make representations on how the University should redress imbalances created by apartheid education and a solution to the accommodation problem.
Charlton was sympathetic, agreeing that the inferior education provided by the Department of Education and Training was an important factor in determining students’ academic performance, and acknowledging that the University had an obligation to provide the academic support necessary to overcome the resulting educational disadvantage. Nevertheless, he said, ‘once it becomes clear that (students) will not be able to complete a degree course, there really is no alternative to excluding them from the University’. He could therefore not agree to a moratorium on exclusions.
The University was experiencing an accommodation crisis similar to that of many other universities at the beginning of an academic year. The large influx of new students, most of whom had no alternative accommodation, was a grave problem. Past experience had shown that within a few months many residence beds would be vacated as some students moved into flats and communes and others dropped out of their studies. The University had to find a balance between providing new residences in the face of stringent financial constraints, and over-providing and having subsequently to administer residences that were only partly filled. It was clear however, that accommodation needs would increase steadily as black student numbers climbed in subsequent years, and strenuous attempts were made to raise financial aid to support a residence acquisition programme.
Chapter 9 - The Struggle Reaches a Climax
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 201-256
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
The state of emergency was exacting a horrific toll on the forces of resistance in South Africa, including the student movements. Large numbers of troops were being deployed in the townships to assist the police. Thousands of people had been detained including substantial numbers of children. In March 1987 Vlok had admitted that 43 people had died in detention and 263 detainees had been treated in hospital. An investigation by doctors of the National Medical and Dental Association (Namda) in 1988 found that 73 per cent of a group of 131 detainees had been mentally abused by threats and humiliation during interrogation. Restrictions on the press imposed by emergency regulations prevented the reporting of detentions, disturbances or activities of the security forces. A report of the International Commission of Jurists in May 1988 based on the findings of a team of lawyers from Western Europe the previous year, condemned the widespread use of torture and violence by security forces with the connivance of the Government.
Although the Government had lost ground to the Conservative Party during the 1987 elections for the white House of Assembly because they were perceived by the political right to be moving away from the Verwoerdian apartheid principles, P W Botha was telling the party faithful at the annual congress in August 1988 that he was not considering the possibility of a black majority government. Instead he was contemplating various constitutional devices such as a National Council that would have only advisory powers. This was contemptuously rejected by black leaders as were segregated municipal elections which in October 1988 were boycotted and supported by a mere 3 per cent of voters from the entire African population of South Africa, including the homelands.
While the conflict between the universities and the Government on the subsidy issue was being resolved in the Supreme Court in February 1988, the start of the new academic year was clouded by amendments to the emergency regulations on 24 February. These amendments and the orders published under them empowered the Government to ‘name’ seventeen organisations, which effectively banned them. Among them were Sansco, the United Democratic Front (UDF), the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee (DPSC), the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC), Azapo and the South African Youth Congress (Sayco).
Appendices
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp 306-347
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
THE GOVERNANCE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND
In the course of this book there are numerous references to the structures known as the Council and the Senate and to officers of the University known as Vice-Chancellor and Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellors. These structures and individuals and the authority that they carry are similar throughout the university system in South Africa in the post-apartheid era. In the period about which I write they were similar for the English-medium so-called ‘open universities’ but were under much greater state control in those institutions established by the National Party government for the development of apartheid tertiary education.
The Council
In terms of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, (Private) Act and the statutes that fall under it, the government and the executive authority of the University is vested in the Council. The Council elects the chairperson from amongst its members. The Council has statutory authority to administer all the property of the University and has general control (including financial) of the University and of all its affairs, purposes and functions, except as otherwise provided in the Act. Council appoints all persons considered necessary for the efficient conduct of the University and determines the title, status, powers, privileges, functions and duties of the people appointed. The Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellors are appointed by the Council after it has consulted with various constituencies of the University. It also determines the fees to be paid by students, but only after consultation with the Senate.
During the 1980s the Act provided for the following composition of Council: Vice-Chancellor, Vice-Principal and Deputy Vice-Chancellors, the Mayor of Johannesburg, eight members appointed by the State President, four members elected by the Convocation (graduates, academic staff, professors emeriti and retired academic staff who have had ten years continuous full-time service), five members elected by the Senate, three members appointed by the Council of Education of the Witwatersrand, two members elected by past students and donors, two members appointed by the City Council of Johannesburg, one member appointed by the Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce, one member appointed by the Transvaal Chamber of Industries and two members appointed by the Chamber of Mines of South Africa.
Acknowledgements
- Mervyn Shear, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
- Foreword by Firoz Cachalia, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
-
- Book:
- WITS
- Published by:
- Wits University Press
- Published online:
- 24 November 2023
- Print publication:
- 01 September 2022, pp xvii-xviii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation