South Africa’s adherence to the rule of law is slipping away slowly. This is according to the 2024 Rule of Law index, released annually by the World Justice Project. The rule of law, fundamentally, is the principle that the law applies to everyone in equal measure, and nobody is above the law. The UN elaborates Read more >
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In the 28 years that the World Bank has been monitoring South Africa’s control of corruption via its annual worldwide governance indicators (WGIs), the country has gone steadily downhill in that regard. From the first appearance in 1996, when South Africa achieved a respectable percentile rank of 76.3 on a scale of zero to 100 Read more >
Democracy: from Ancient Greek dēmokratía, dēmos ‘people’ and kratos ‘rule’. Literally, rule by the people, especially rule of the majority. In its basic form, a government in which state power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving free and competitive elections. September 15 Read more >
Democracy [noun]UK /dɪˈmɒk.rə.si/ The belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves. South Africa, like more than 60 other countries, goes to the polls in a couple of months in what is Read more >
Released on 25 January, just days before this week’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), the Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG) gives further insight into why sub-Saharan Africa is consistently the worst performing region in the CPI. Launched in 2007 by Sudanese-British businessman Mo Ibrahim, the IIAG is published every two years, and is described as Read more >
Accountability is one of the country’s favourite words at the moment, particularly in relation to the current fast-changing political climate and in the wake of the years of state capture. But accountability means different things to different people, in different contexts. It can be a highly contested concept – so who decides on what counts Read more >
By Tafi Mhaka First published on Al Jazeera On June 21, Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera fired the country’s chief of police, suspended several senior government officials and also took the extraordinary step of stripping his deputy, Saulos Chilima, of all powers after they were accused of receiving kickbacks from UK-based businessman Zuneth Sattar in exchange Read more >
These days South Africa – and let’s be fair, many other countries – is almost expected to make mediocre showings on various global governance-related indices. The Corruption Perceptions Index is one. The World Justice Project’s (WJP) Rule of Law index is another. The WJP Rule of Law index measures the practice of the rule of Read more >
Governance: the traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised, including the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them. Read more >