Local governments pursuit to social inclusion: Perspectives from the south african and Turkish legal and policy frameworks

Türkiye and South Africa are clear examples of how the administrative system is shaped along the lines of political, social and historical factors. Türkiye being a civil law nation, subsequently adopted a style of municipal governance similar to the rest of Europe as a member of the council of Europe. South Africa's Roman Dutch law administrative system in the last 29 years has been shaped along lines of democracy, accountability, and equality. International and regional instruments compel both Türkiye and South Africa to develop human rights-based approaches relating to local government law and policy. In aspiring to undergo transformation, South Africa and Türkiye undertook reforms in their local government laws over the years. Taking note of the fact that Türkiye is a monist state, international instruments immediately become part of Turkish law once ratified. In case of South Africa, the Constitution in Section 39(1) (a-c) explicitly references to the use of foreign and international normative approaches in shaping its laws. However, the South African Constitutional court has been avoiding going one step further in developing the minimum core of Social and Economic Rights in the famous cases on health, water and sanitation which partially fall within the scope local government duties. For this reason, this comparative study aims to find alternative approaches to socio-economic rights such as the pursuit of social inclusion from a planning law perspective at local government level. The study draws inspiration from the 'most similar cases principle' of Ran Hirschl as a chosen methodology. This 'most similar cases principle' used in this thesis builds on the capability approach, socio-economic rights-based approaches and coding of capital in line with the Sustainable Development goals to draw a casual inference in making this comparison. Spotting similarities and how such similarities are linked to the main problem that is social inclusion and social exclusion. Although there may be some differences on how law and policy concerning social inclusion are designed and implemented, the method has an emphasis on similar traits which is subsequently followed by the differences. The thesis basically breaks up into 7 dimensions categorised into (i)housing matters, (ii)access to safe public spaces, (iii)access to transport, (iv)water and sanitation, (v)access to health, (vi)access to information, and (vii) gender matters. The study will contextualize these 7 dimensions of law and policy with the aim of drawing up normative approaches that can be best understood to outline the meaning and purpose of social inclusion from a local government perspective. The original contribution of this thesis intends to re-imagine how the legislative and policy regimes in the two countries can be understood within the context of the capability approach and social capital, to realise the pursuit of social inclusion at local government level. Key words: social inclusion, social exclusion, capability approach, service delivery, sustainable development, socio-economic rights, discrimination, informal settlements, social justice