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In 1994, after the 1993 Constitution had been adopted, the Katz Commission questioned the constitutionality of some provisions of the Income Tax Act. The purpose of this article is, firstly, to follow up on the progress made in amending the provisions concerned and, secondly, to establish reasons for the lack of success achieved by taxpayers who attack the constitutionality of certain provisions. Some progress has been made, but in this article, the author argues that SARS should amend section 104(2) of the Act. The establishment of a specialist ombudsman’s office is also proposed. Such an office that could assist taxpayers to enforce their constitutional rights against the Commissioner is the essential missing element.

This chapter compares a ‘deific decree’ insanity case with constitutional originalism debates as a way to understand the boundaries of the legal person and the nature of law. The criminal defendant who claims innocence on the ground that ‘God told me to’ does not embody a conflict between law and religion, but a conflict between law’s demand for intersubjectivity and the subjectivity of a ‘higher truth known only to me’. In the same way, the originalist interpreter of the constitution rejects precedent in favour of a higher truth that need not be ‘like’ anything before. One approach to broaching this conflict between law and revelation is to understand law’s domain as temporal and incomplete – to imagine a humble rather than absolute law. On this view, the person is also not ‘absolute subjectivity’, but is compelled by legal fidelity to treat like alike and therefore under an obligation to imagine a ‘me’ as ‘we’. Or, to put it another way, to bring the person and the law into relationship is to reject a ‘revelatory’ interpretation of ‘original’ or ‘divine’ law in favour of an incompletely intersubjective common law that links me to we through customs and time. At the same time, by acknowledging law’s incompleteness, we can see unreasonable revelation sometimes as a possibility and not always as an insanity.

The Commissioner for the South African Revenue Service has wide discretionary powers. In this article, the meaning, purpose, types, extent and exercise of these powers are examined. Do these powers promote uncertainty and/or unfairness and inconsistency, and if so, which of these powers do so? The extent of the powers given by some of the discretions not specifically subject to objection and appeal is questioned: no discretionary powers involving liability for tax should be allowed, especially not without the right to objection and appeal. Because of the general administrative relationship between the Commissioner and the taxpayer and because exercising a discretionary power constitutes an administrative action, the constitutionality of this power was examined in terms of taxpayers’ right to just administrative action. Only discretionary powers not specifically made subject to objection and appeal are open for constitutional attack.

Education is both a human right and an indispensable means of achieving other rights. Provision of education for irregular status migrant children tests the commitment of nation states to this basic right even as states curb irregular immigration. In the US, the right to go to school was guaranteed to irregular migrant children, by the case of Plyler v. Doe in 1982. This article argues that the right enshrined in that decision faces considerable risk of being eroded in the current political context. The article presents a detailed critical analysis of the rationale in the case, with a full consideration of the shaky constitutional framework on which the decision was based. It also examines the direct legal challenges to the right to education since Plyler, and the potential impact of new political and legal changes in contemporary times.

A crisis typically has three characteristics. First, a crisis is unexpected, a complete surprise. Second, a crisis is normally unpleasant in that current plans are found to work less well than had been anticipated. Third, a crisis requires an urgent response of some kind. That is to say, an immediate change of plans is expected to reduce or avoid the worst consequences associated with the unpleasant surprise. These characteristics imply that not every public policy problem is a crisis, because many public policy problems are anticipated or long-standing. The present social security problem faced by most Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) nations is not a crisis, although it is a serious problem. Other policy problems are clearly worsened rather than improved when current policies are abandoned. This may be said of constitutional law, in cases in which minor unexpected problems arise from longstanding political procedures. Other policy problems lack immediacy, even when they are unanticipated. This might be argued, for example, of global warming, which was unanticipated prior to 1990 yet is anticipated to take decades to emerge. Not every serious problem is a crisis.¹

To explain the background, controversy and possible future developments related to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) increased use of administrative proceedings (APs), rather than court actions, in bringing enforcement matters.

Discusses the SEC’s historic forum selection process, the home court advantage APs may give to the SEC, changes the SEC has proposed to the Rules of Practice governing APs, arguments challenging the constitutionality of APs, a jurisdictional hurdle faced by respondents challenging APs before federal courts, and possible future developments.

Critics consider the SEC’s expanded use of APs to be procedurally biased, unconstitutional, and unfairly advantageous to the SEC. In response, the SEC has offered guidance explaining its forum selection process, proposed procedural changes, and its belief that its systems are fair.

Practical guidance from experienced financial services and securities litigation lawyers.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Benjamin Franklin's understanding of political economy was shaped by his association with the French school of writers known as physiocrats.

The paper works from direct statements by Franklin in his published works and correspondence and biographical sources.

Franklin declared himself to embrace physiocratic principles and ideals but was not able to advance these ideals at home.

Further details are undoubtedly available from sources not translated from French into English.

The course of history would have been significantly different had the physiocratic ideals become the basis for law and public policies.

The paper offers further evidence of the influence of the physiocratic school on Franklin, as one of the leading practical philosophers of his age.