Page 17 - Constitutional Model for a Democratic South Africa By Prof Vuyisle Dlova

Revenue

It is important for us to say a word about sources of revenue for the national and regional
governments. In our model regionalism is not an end in itself. It is a constitutional device
aimed at building a strong nation in conditions of peace, stability and social harmony. South
Africa / Azania to us is an indivisible whole and one nation.

It follows from the above that its wealth should be enjoyed as far as possible by the whole
nation. To fulfil this objective it is important that all major sources of revenue should be
centralised and shared according to a set formula between the national and regional
governments. It is important therefore that the national government should enjoy, amongst
other things, exclusive power to levy taxes on incomes and profits made by individuals and
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corporate bodies.
Language

It may seem awkward that we put this sub-topic here, but in view of the close relationship
between region, nationality and language in the context of South Africa we have decided to
treat this very important question here.

We propose that there should be one official language, at the national level. That language,
for reasons of convenience, would be the English language. At regional level, however, there
should be two official languages, viz, the national official language and the regional language.
What that language should be, would be an exclusive matter for the region to be decided by
the regional legislature or a referendum of all those who reside in the region. However, every
individual would have the right to use his or her own language.

Constitutional guarantees on protection of individual rights

As noted in the first part of this work the principal liberation movements in South Africa have
committed themselves to the protection of human rights of individuals. The ANC Freedom
Charter goes further to recite the traditional freedoms, viz, press, assembly and personal
security. However, as is well known, reciting and giving of constitutional recognition and
justiciability to individual rights are two different things. Indeed the 1983 racist constitution of
South Africa recites the traditional freedoms also in its preamble. But, as has been eloquently
stated elsewhere: “human rights are the product of freedom, legal protection of them cannot
be tacked on to a basically unfree society, yet the purpose of such protection is to maintain
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and expand the area of freedom” The question we pose in this section is therefore not
whether human rights should be respected in a free South Africa ,but whether the future
constitution should guarantee the protection of individual right and, if yes, then what form that
protection should take.

Methods of protecting individual rights in a constitution are many. In the context of franchise
rights discussed above, we did mention how for instance the voting rights of the Cape
Africans were entrenched by the South Africa Act of 1909. However, in the context of this
article, we will confine ourselves to only one form or method of protection, namely the Bill of
Rights.

By a Bill of Rights we mean here simply a section or provisions in a written constitution that
recites and makes legally sacrosanct individual rights that are regarded as fundamental.