Incapacity, disability and dismissal : the implications for South African labour jurisprudence
type: CreativeWork
description: Disability in South African labour law is reduced to incapacity. An evaluation of disability and incapacity was made to advocate a clear conceptual break between the two concepts. Also, that disability should be grounded in a social model paradigm of disability which was a materialist critique of how capitalism constructs disability. To enhance the analysis discourse analysis was employed to illustrate how language, ideology and power sustained the notion of disability in capitalist society. A comparative analysis was made drawing on American disability jurisprudence and Canadian disability jurisprudence to illustrate the difference in approach between the two legal systems with a suggestion that the Canadian approach was better suited to the development of a South African disability law. And the development of South African disability law it was argued would benefit if a legal construction of disability was crafted to deal with the obstacles that disabled people encounter in the work-place.
abstract: Disability in South African labour law is reduced to incapacity. An evaluation of disability and incapacity was made to advocate a clear conceptual break between the two concepts. Also, that disability should be grounded in a social model paradigm of disability which was a materialist critique of how capitalism constructs disability. To enhance the analysis discourse analysis was employed to illustrate how language, ideology and power sustained the notion of disability in capitalist society. A comparative analysis was made drawing on American disability jurisprudence and Canadian disability jurisprudence to illustrate the difference in approach between the two legal systems with a suggestion that the Canadian approach was better suited to the development of a South African disability law. And the development of South African disability law it was argued would benefit if a legal construction of disability was crafted to deal with the obstacles that disabled people encounter in the work-place.
author: Hoskins, Jonathan Mark
keywords: Dignity, Discrimination, Ddisability, Dismissal, Employment equity, Incapacity, Canadian disability jurisprudence, American disability jurisprudence, Medical model of disability, Social model of disability, Legal construction of disability
date published: 2010
date modified: 2026-07-24T06:00:32Z
provider: University of the Western Cape
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of the Western Cape