Administrative Tribunals in South Africa and ADR

South Africa is a pluralistic regime that incorporates civil law, customary law and common law. There is a plethora of administrative tribunals that are prevalent due to specific causes of actions and specialisations that deliberate disputes to finalisation. There are nine provinces in South Africa, with a population of approximately 60 million people. Tribunals are distributed across the country, but more so in the cities with a centralized economic hub and demographic concentration. The chapter explores the specialised role of tribunals in South Africa and the relationship nexus with the court system. The tribunals in South Africa have followed a tiered hierarchical system within the individualistic systems and operates in an isolated manner away from the other specialized tribunals. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and access to justice plays a cardinal role within the tribunals, and there exists the need for improvements to the tribunals to exert ADR mechanisms more effectively to ameliorate access to justice. This chapter explores the harmonization of tribunals and the operation of online tribunals in the pandemic. Furthermore, the chapter will elucidate the eminence and decrepitude of the tribunal system in South Africa.