Municipal instruments in law for Cultural Heritage Protection : a case study of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality

Abstract

The premise of this article is that local government can add to the protection effort of cultural heritage resources in South Africa by way of instruments such as by -laws, planning instruments and local policies. Cultural heritage resources in the context of this article include both tangible and intangible manifestations of culture and heritage. Schedule 4A of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa ,1996 (the Constitution) assigns "cultural matters" to national and provincial governments as a concurrent function. Municipalities are expected to execute aspects of this function based on a few rights in the Constitution (sections 15, 30, 31 and 24) as well as the heritage, environmental and local government framework legislation and policy documents of South Africa. As a first step to assess what local government can de jure contribute to cultural heritage protection and management, this article evaluates the national legislative framework for cultural heritage resource management ( and explores the instruments it creates for municipalities to help give effect to CHRM. To give life to this analysis, the article further probes into a select few instruments of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Municipality and two specific court cases concerning CHRCHRM in the City.