Richard J. T. Calland [1] (born 10 July, 1964) is a British-South African writer and political analyst. Until 2023 Calland was Associate Professor of Public Law at the University of Cape Town. He subsequently was appointed Adjunct Associate Professor at the Wits School of Government and a Fellow of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. [2] [3] He is a co-director of Sustainability Education [4] and has been a columnist for the Mail & Guardian since 2001. [3]
Calland read Law at Durham University ( Hatfield College ) and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1987. [5] [3] Whilst at Durham, Calland wrote for the student newspaper criticising the policing of the 1984 Miners' Strike and Thatcherism more widely, calling for it to be replaced with "a fresh radical consensus". [6] Apart from his undergraduate degree he holds an LLM from the University of Cape Town and a postgraduate diploma in World Politics from the London School of Economics. [3]
Calland practiced as a barrister in London until 1994, when he moved to South Africa to work as an advisor to the ANC in the Western Cape before the upcoming election. [3]
From 1995 to 2011 he headed the Political Monitoring & Information Service at IDASA. [3] In 2005 he was a visiting scholar at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University. [3] Other than democratic governance, his academic interests include sustainable development and climate finance. [2] He is the author of several books on the Politics of South Africa, among them, The Zuma Years: South Africa's Changing Face of Power, published in 2013. [7]
Along with Lawson Naidoo and Ian Farmer, Calland is co-founder of the Paternoster Group, a political consulting company. [8] Calland also co-founded the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (CASAC) with Naidoo.
In 2017 Calland was embroiled in a controversy in which activists raised concerns about "the foreign corporations that The Paternoster Group works with, about the use by Naidoo and Calland of their position in civil society to promote their business venture, about their sources of income, and about the link to Marikana". [9] The activists criticised the association between Paternoster and Ian Farmer who was CEO of Lonmin at the time of the Marikana Massacre. Paternoster had produced a report on the Marikana massacre which the activists claimed "seems to engage in special pleading on behalf of Lonmin". [9] In the resulting fallout the SaveSA campaign cut ties with CASAC. [9]
In September 2024, Speaker of the Parliament of South Africa, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula appointed him to the Panel constituted in terms of section 89 of the Constitution of South Africa to determine whether there was a prima facie case to against President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa based on the heist on his farm, Phala Phala, in Limpopo. [10] However, due to objections raised by the Democratic Alliance and Economic Freedom Fighters on perceived biases, he resigned from the panel. [11]
Commenting to the Chicago Tribune in 1999, he compared the charisma and charm of Nelson Mandela to Ronald Reagan. [12] He has been critical of the proposal made by Thuli Madonsela that public servants implicated in corruption should be given the chance to apply for amnesty. [13]
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national President, has served as President of the ANC since 18 December 2017.
Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa is a South African businessman and politician serving as the 5th and current President of South Africa since 2018. A former anti-apartheid activist and trade union leader, Ramaphosa is also the president (leader) of the African National Congress (ANC).
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Jayaseelan Naidoo is a South African politician and businessman who served as the founding general secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) from 1985 to 1993. He then served as Minister responsible for the Reconstruction and Development Programme in the first post-apartheid cabinet of President Nelson Mandela (1994–1996) and as Minister of Post, Telecommunications, and Broadcasting (1996–1999).
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Zakeria Mohammed "Zak" Yacoob is a retired South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 1998 to January 2013. He was appointed to the bench by Nelson Mandela and retired after serving the maximum 15-year term. Before he joined the bench, he was a practising advocate and an anti-apartheid activist.
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Pius Nkonzo LangaSCOB was Chief Justice of South Africa from June 2005 to October 2009. Formerly a human rights lawyer, he was appointed as a puisne judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa upon its inception in 1995. He was the Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa from November 2001 until May 2005, when President Thabo Mbeki elevated him to the Chief Justiceship. He was South Africa's first black African Chief Justice.
Dikgang Ernest Moseneke OLG is a South African jurist and former Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa.
South Africa has been dubbed "the protest capital of the world", with one of the highest rates of public protests in the world.
The Judicial Service Commission is a body specially constituted by the South African Constitution to recommend persons for appointment to the judiciary of South Africa.
The Constitution of South Africa protects all basic political freedoms. However, there have been many incidents of political repression, dating back to at least 2002, as well as threats of future repression in violation of this constitution leading some analysts, civil society organisations and popular movements to conclude that there is a new climate of political repression or a decline in political tolerance.
The Marikana massacre was the killing of thirty-four miners by the South African Police Service (SAPS) on 16 August 2012 during a six-week wildcat strike at the Lonmin platinum mine at Marikana near Rustenburg in South Africa's North West province. The massacre constituted the most lethal use of force by South African security forces against civilians since the Soweto uprising in 1976 and has been compared to the 1960 Sharpeville massacre.
Sisi Virginia Khampepe is a retired South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa between October 2009 and October 2021. Formerly a prominent labour lawyer, she joined the bench in December 2000 as a judge of the Transvaal Provincial Division. She was also a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Robben Island Prison is an inactive prison on Robben Island in Table Bay, 6.9 kilometers (4.3 mi) west of the coast of Bloubergstrand, Cape Town, South Africa. Nobel Laureate and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela was imprisoned there for 18 of the 27 years he served behind bars before the fall of apartheid. Since then, three former inmates of the prison have gone on to become President of South Africa.
Nokulunga Primrose Sonti is a South African politician from the North West who served as a Member of the National Assembly of South Africa for the Economic Freedom Fighters from May 2014 until May 2024. Sonti was previously a member of the African National Congress.
The 2020 Phala Phala Robbery or Cyril Ramaphosa Farm Burglary or Farmgate Scandal was a burglary of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's private Phala Phala game farm near Bela-Bela, Limpopo, South Africa. The incident occurred on 9 February 2020 in which an indeterminate amount of cash was stolen. Arthur Fraser, an ally of former President Jacob Zuma alleged that around 4 million US dollars of undeclared foreign currency had been stolen. However, subsequent reports indicated that the amount stolen was $580 000 Ramaphosa denied any wrongdoing, and sought judicial review of a report by a panel appointed by the South African Parliament released in 2022 that accused him of "serious misconduct". Opposition parties and MPs have slammed investigations into the source of the cash, and have accused the South African Reserve Bank of a providing claptrap report and systemic coverup. The Democratic Alliance intends to pursue the courts to further investigate the matter.
Bantubonke Regent Tokota is a South African judge of the High Court of South Africa. He was appointed to the Eastern Cape Division in October 2017 after 20 years as a practising advocate in Pretoria. He was Senior Counsel from 2006 onwards and also served on the Marikana Commission of Inquiry between 2012 and 2014.