Bibliographie sélective OHADA

LL.D. <br>Please refer to full text to view abstract

LL.D Please refer to full text to view abstract

The use of temporary employment services as a means to achieve flexibility in die labour market led to various complications due to a lack of proper regulation. The atypical formation of the triangular employment relationship, limited rights and less favourable employment conditions of the temporary employees, multiple authority figures and their liabilities under various circumstances and the impact thereof on such employee’ collective bargaining rights caused legal uncertainty in the absence of sufficient legislation to govern it. Temporary employment agencies developed certain methods in order to evade the restrictive labour legislation and employer duties imposed on them, namely by making use of automatic termination clauses (resolutive conditions) and by categorising the temporary employee as an independent contractor. Last mentioned would effectively exclude the temporary employee from labour legislation and the protection it provides. In reaction to abovementioned problems, trade unions have been objecting to the use of temporary employment agencies and went as far as demanding the total ban thereof. This raised the question in the South African Government whether said agencies should indeed be banned. The other option is a less restrictive approach and entails the attempt to regulate these agencies by amending the current labour legislation in order to accommodate temporary employment services. In light of the fact that various proposals to amend the current South African labour legislation (especially with regard to temporary employment services) have been published in the Government Gazette, it can be deduced that the social partners ultimately chose to regulate temporary employment agencies rather than ban them altogether. From an early stage the International Labour Organisation (ILO) provided rules and regulations for the management of employment agencies in general by way of conventions and recommendations. In 1997, in order to give effect to the labour standards identified by it, the ILO brought the Private Employment Agencies Convention into existence. This document could be applied to all temporary employment agencies on an international level. This document provides for administrative regulations, the duties of the agency and the client as well as the rights of the temporary employees concerned. The ILO recommends that all of its member states incorporate the principles contained within this document in their own legislation. Temporary employment services are also used in other legal systems. For purposes of this study, the English law (United Kingdom (UK)) and the Namibian law will be scrutinised. Similar issues to those recognised in the South African law have been identified in these countries. However, each has approached said problems in different ways. The Namibian Government banned the conducting and provision of these services by way of legislation in 2007. The constitutionality of the ban has however been questioned by the Supreme Court of Namibia, after which it had been found to infringe upon the fundamental freedom to carry on any business, trade or occupation. The ban was struck down as unconstitutional. The Namibian Government has since promulgated new legislation in which it removed the ban and replaced it with numerous amendments providing for the regulation of temporary employment services. Since 1973 the UK has been promulgating various instruments for the thorough regulation of temporary employment agencies. These instruments provide for the management of temporary employment agencies and the rights of the employees involved. The relevant legislative instruments have been updated regularly with the purpose of ensuring that the needs of all the parties concerned are met. The UK, as a member state of the European Union (EU), (which has also been providing for the regulation of temporary employment services in various directives), promulgated legislation specifically with the aim to give effect to the principles in the mentioned directives. By way of doctrines and the creation of a third category ―worker‖ the UK has been attempting to prevent any loopholes in their legal system with regard to temporary employment services and the rights of the employees involved. The aim of this study is to investigate all the important complications experienced with temporary employment agencies in order to indicate the impact the atypical circumstances have on the rights of the temporary employees. The degree to which, if at all, the South African law complies with the preferred labour standards identified by the ILO will be pointed out. A comparative study will be conducted, first by ascertaining in detail how the comparable issues in the UK and Namibian law are dealt with, and second by identifying which aspects in these legal systems could be of value to the South African law. Finally the potential effectiveness of the proposed amendments to the South African labour legislation will be analysed, during which recommendations for the unresolved issues will be provided. The recommendations are mainly aimed at achieving sufficient rights and legal certainty for the temporary employees associated with temporary employment agencies.

Modern juristic persons often are powerful entities and they play an influential role in society. Their activities are often accompanied by serious transgressions that have a severely detrimental impact on human beings and their environment. The effective prosecution of juristic persons is therefore necessary. The juridical foundations of the liability of juristic persons are, however, one of the most controversial issues in criminal law theory. Individualistic theories postulate that juristic persons are merely collections of individuals. The conduct and fault of individuals constituting a juristic person must therefore form the basis of the criminal liability of the juristic person. In the United States, for instance, the foundation for the criminal liability of corporations on federal level is vicarious liability. Another individualistic model (mostly associated with English common law jurisdictions) is the so–called doctrine of identification. Only the conduct of individuals who are regarded as the 'directing minds' of the organisation may be attributed to the organisation. These approaches deny the complex structures and decision making processes that exist especially in big corporate entities. According to realistic theories juristic persons are entities which are not dependant on their composite members. Each juristic person has its own unique personality. The culture and ethos of a juristic person influence the conduct of individuals attached to it as well as the degree in which the juristic person abides by the law. The identity of a corporation can be established by investigating the internal structure thereof. The existence of monitoring mechanisms and educational programmes within the organization, as well as the degree to which the organisation condones or disapproves of unlawful conduct, are some of the factors which may be indicative of the corporate culture. This approach is a development of the late twentieth century and has recently been adopted in the legislation of some foreign legal systems, most notably Australia. Section 332(1) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 provides the basis for the criminal liability of juristic persons in South Africa. In essence the conduct and fault of functionaries (and sometimes even outsiders) are attributed to the juristic person. In terms of the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Act juristic persons may only be fined upon conviction. This approach reflects the individualistic view of corporate criminal liability. In this study recommendations are made for the purpose of improving the South African law in this regard so as to reflect a more realistic approach. The recommendations are based on an examination of realistic models proposed by legal and social theorists and legislation adopted by foreign countries which are based on these theories. It is also recommended that more sentencing options must be made available to bring about the restructuring of corporations which have committed crimes.

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The concepts public policy and public interest often obtain an imprecise content as a criterion for contractual justice in South African law. The consequence of this is some degree of legal uncertainty. This is the problem raised in the present dissertation. From the cases and literature the causes of the problem became clearer and it became evident that the correct basis to deal with this problem is the systematisation of this sphere of the law of contract, which also implies the circumspect dealing with concepts. This was confirmed by the examination of a number of foreign legal systems. It appeared moreover that in these systems too, general criteria are used to evaluate contractual justice, namely: in German law the concepts gute Sitten and Treu und Glauben, in Dutch law the concepts goede zeden, openbare orde, as well as redelijkheid en billijkheid (goede trouw) and in English law the concept public policy and possibly in future also the concept good faith. The foreign systems furthermore provided some solutions regarding the practical implementation of the systematisation. The proposed systematisation firstly implies that public policy and public interest should be understood correctly as a general criterion in this sphere, which means that it has a normative character as well as a flexible nature, which necessarily causes some degree of legal uncertainty. It also implies that public policy and public interest - correctly orientated - should be seen as pivotal to one of the requirements for a valid contract, which is traditionally known as the requirement of legality, but which probably should rather be known as the requirement of lawfulness. This requirement should in addition be understood in a broad sense as also relating to the effect of contracts, and consequently to contractual justice, seen as the relative balance between the interests of the parties. The systematisation furthermore includes the understanding that in this sphere a judge has a limited discretion in exercising a law-creating power. The discretion is limited, especially to prevent a judge from reaching a decision on account of a purely subjective opinion. Regarding this limited discretion an established system of guidelines currently does not exist in South African law, but in the present dissertation a step in this direction was made. The gist of these guidelines is that the nature and the context of the relevant contract or contract term should be observed. The individual case should, however, not be over-emphasised, since that may lead to a superabundance of legal uncertainty and to the misuse of public policy and public interest as a defence. Regarding practical application the systematisation includes in short that various facets of public policy and public interest are distinguished, namely legislation and common law, established views and customs (boni mores), and thirdly public policy and public interest as such, concretised by the concept good faith as the underlying principle. It is submitted that the proposed systematisation could contribute to decreasing the imprecise use of the concepts public policy and public interest and concomitant legal uncertainty.

In hierdie ondersoek is daar navorsing gedoen oor die aard en rol van fisiese beheer in die sakereg met die oog daarop om dit te omskryf en die funksies daarvan te identifiseer. By die verkryging van eiendomsreg word net vereis dat die fisiese beheer wat ten aansien van die saak uitgeoefen word, effektief moet wees. Of 'n saak effektief beheer word al dan nie, word aan die hand van die heersende verkeersopvattings getoets. Hierdie verkeersmaatstawwe wat in die praktyk ten aansien van bepaalde soorte sake uitgekristalliseer het, is buigsaam en veranderlik en dit maak dit moontlik dat die reg by maatskaplike en ekonomiese veranderinge aanpas. Die funksie van fisiese beheer in gevalle van verkryging is altyd publisiteit. In die geval van die beskerming van eiendomsreg word fisiese beheer besonder breed omskryf en daar word slegs verwag dat die persoon van wie die saak teruggeeis word, genoegsame beheer daaroor moet he om dit te kan teruggee. Die funksie van beheer is hier suiwer funksioneel. By die verlies van eiendomsreg speel fisiese beheer nie juis 'n besondere rol nie aangesien die verlies van beheer nie noodwendig op die verlies of beeindiging van eiendomsreg dui nie. Wanneer dit wel ter sprake kom, is die funksie daarvan publisiteit. In die geval van die verkryging van besit en houerskap, dien daarop gelet te word dat die enigste vereiste is dat beheer effektief moet wees en dit word weer eens aan die hand van verkeersmaatstawwe bepaal. Fisiese beheer word strenger omskryf vir verkryging as vir behoud. By die beskerming van besit en houerskap is die enigste vereiste wat gestel word dat beheer vreedsaam en ongestoord moes gewees het. Wanneer beheer oor 'n saak verloor word, gaan dit gewoonlik gepaard met die verlies van besit of houerskap. Die funksie van fisiese beheer is deurgaans publisiteit. Fisiese beheer word redelik streng omskryf vir doeleindes van 'n gewone pand en daar word gewoonlik vereis dat die pandsaak gelewer en gehou moet word vir die vestiging en behoud van 'n pandreg. Die funksies van beheer is hier sekuriteit en publisiteit.

Die doel van hierdie proefskrif was om bestaande prohleme in verband met maatskappyregtelike skikkings te ondersoek, in die lig daarvan dat die prosedure berug is as n wyse om misdadige bedrywighede rondom die ineenstorting van n maatskappy te verberg. Die ondersoek is hoofsaaklik beperk tot skikkings, hoewel skikkings en reelings deur dieselfde bepalings van die Wet gereguleer word. Die geskiedkundige ontwikkeling van artikels 311 en 312 is vanaf hul ontstaan in die Engelse wetgewing nagegaan. Die begrippe "skikking" en "reeling" is ontleed en die praktiese gebruike daarvan nagegaan. l Ons howe beskou n goedgekeurde maatskappyregtelike skikking as n kontrak; dit voldoen egter nie aan die vereistes vir n kontrakregtelike skikking nie. Die tersaaklike kontraktuele aspekte is derhalwe nagegaan. Aan die hand van regspraak en n aantal goedgekeurde skikkings, is die inhoud van n skikkingsaanbod ontleed. Die toepaslike prosedure en formaliteite is sorgvuldig nagegaan, in die lig daarvan dat die Wet eerder hierop klem 1~ as op die inhoud van die skikking. Besondere aandag is aan die grondslag vir indeling van skuldeisers en lede in verskillende klasse gegee. Statutere regulering van die skikkingprosedure eindig nadat die skikking van krag geword het. Die verdere verloop vind in ooreenstemming met die bepalings van die skikking plaas. Uitvoering hiervan word deur n sogenaamde ontvanger namens skuldeisers waargeneem, n amp wat nog nie statutere erkenning geniet nie, maar wat in die praktyk duidelik uitgekristalliseer het. Aan die hand van regspraak is sy amp verder nagegaan en is daar aanbeveel dat, net soos in Australie, sy amp statuter erken en gereel behoort te word. Daar is gelet op misbruik van die skikking- en reelingskemaprosedure, sowel as op die behoefte aan beter beskerming van skuldeisers en lede. Daar is aanbeveel dat waar n maatskappy in likwidasie of onder ,geregtelike bestuur is, skikkings uit die artikel 311-prosedure gelig behoort te word en in ooreenstemming met die akkoordprosedure by insolvensie gebring te word, met die verskil dat likwidasie of geregtelike bestuur onmiddellik by bekragtiging van n skikking opgehef kan word. Yoldoende tyd vir behoorlike ondersoek van n maatskappy se sake behoort toegelaat te word alvorens n skikking oorweeg kan word en meer omvattende inligting behoort aan skuldeisers en lede verskaf te word. Die howe behoort in die uitoefening van hul diskresie deur n deskundige bygestaan te word wat oor die ekonomiese aspekte van n skema verslag doen.