Gosale Ayele Birhanu
UAM Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
According to the Constitution of South Africa, government is constituted at national, provincial and local spheres which are distinctive, interdependent and interrelated. One of the new major features of the post-apartheid South African Constitution is the elevated status of local governments. Local governments have been granted constitutional recognition and their sphere of competence defined in the new constitutional dispensation. To dispel any notion of hierarchy between these governments, the Constitution deliberately uses the term spheres than level. This is a huge shift in the status of local governments which were under the absolute discretion of provincial governments under the apartheid regime. Yet, the Constiutuion empowers the ‘senior’ spheres of government, i.e. the national and provincial governments, to intervene in the autonomy of local governments under certain circumstances. This paper examines the grounds, forms and scope of intervention in the autonomy of local governments.