Community Law Centre's 2013 Annual report is now available.
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There has been a gradual but consistent improvement in municipal audit outcomes over the past five financial years (2008/09-2012/13), but notwithstanding national government’s new and more realistic strategy to improving audit outcomes, local government may fall short of achieving the new targets for 2019 set by the new Minister.
A researcher for the Socio-Economic Rights Project at the Community Law Centre, Gladys Mirugi-Mukundi participated in the Lwandle Commission of Inquiry by way of presentation of a paper on mass evictions and illegal occupation of land. The paper titled: Evictions in South Africa: Relevant International Standards follows the submission made by Community Law Centre to the Lwandle Commission of Inquiry.
According to him, perhaps planning is the most important responsibility of local government. Yet, in many parts of the continent, local authorities conduct planning in terms of outdated colonial laws. These laws were written for post-war Europe and never designed to deal with specific challenges such as urbanisation, informality and environmental challenges.
Dr Aquinaldo Mandlate takes on the task of the Community Law Centre advocating for advancements in human rights in Africa. The researcher at the Children’s Rights Project of the Centre, last week, delivered expert contributions for participants attending the Oslo Diploma Course (ODC) on advanced Human Rights Training in Norway.
Community Law Centre’s researcher at the Multilevel Government Initiative Tinashe Chigwata presented on behalf of knowledge institutions at consultative workshops organised by the Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing in partnership with UNDP. The workshops were held from 27 to 28 August at Rainbow Towers Hotel in Harare.
Prof Lukas Muntingh and Gwen Dereymaeker went to Burundi from 18 to 20 August 2014 as part of the Article 5 Initiative activities. The Article 5 Initiative is a four-year project aimed at developing tools to monitor domestication of the UN Convention against Torture in 6 African countries.
Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative researchers Gwénaëlle Dereymaeker and Jean Redpath presented papers at the 2014 international conference on National and International Perspectives on Crime Reduction and Criminal Justice hosted by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
On 11 August 2014, Prof Jaap de Visser, Director of the Community Law Centre presented a paper at the Financial and Fiscal Commission’s 20 Year Anniversary at the CTICC in Cape Town. The paper was co-authored by Dr Zemelak Ayele, post-doctoral researcher at the Centre.
The Parliamentary Programme of the Community Law Centre is looking to appoint a L & D facilitator with a minimum of 2 years experience working to promote human rights and social justice to work on our projects to monitor the performance of the legislatures and build civil society engagement with legislatures on human rights issues.
In this edition of our Article 40, we begin with a feature on consensual sexual relations among children. Ms Zita Hansungule, Project Coordinator, Monitoring, Evaluation and Communication, at the Centre for Child Law, University of Pretoria, also delivers a case note that reviews the approach taken by the court in the recent case of S v EA 2014 (1) SACR 183 (NCK).
This second issue of the 2014 ESR Review includes two features on the enjoyment of socio-economic rights in Nigeria and South Africa. The first, by Stanley Ibe, examines the possibility of enforcing socio-economic rights in Nigeria. While the Nigerian Constitution does not explicitly guarantee socio-economic rights, Ibe argues that opportunities exist to enforce these rights through national courts, regional and international human rights bodies.
On 16 July, Dr. Ebenezer Durojaye, Head/Senior Researcher Socioeconomic Rights Project at the Community Law Centre delivered a guest lecture titled: ‘The Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights of Women as a tool for advancing Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’ at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba, Ondo State, Nigeria.
In July, Professor Nico Steytler, the South African Research Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Policy, based at the Community Law Centre was appointed by the United Nations Department of Political Affairs as a short term expert to support Yemeni Constitution Drafting Committee.
Researchers at the Community Law Centre’s Children’s Rights Project were part of the experts who presented at the second installment of an advanced short course on Children's Rights in Africa hosted by Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. The course which ran from 21 to 25 July brought together over 50 child rights researchers, practitioners and policy makers from across Africa.
The Batho Pele (people first) principles should form the fundamental elements in the delivery of housing as a public service, said , community members during two roundtable discussions on housing demand and allocation in South Africa held in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
On 8 and 9 July, the Article 5 Initiative (A5I) hosted its fourth consultative workshop on the prevention and eradication of torture in South Africa. CSPRI is one of the four partners of A5I, a four-year project aimed at developing monitoring tools for the domestication of the UN Convention against Torture (UNCAT).
The data in the Auditor-General’s reports on local government can be used, not only as an annual scorecard of how many municipalities complied with their audit obligations, but as a measure of the resilience of local government as a public institution.
The vast majority of the 300 000 officials in local government fall outside the regulations. This is according Prof Jaap de Visser and Phindile Ntliziywana, researchers at the Community Law Centre’s MLGI project in their latest article on Talking Good Governance blog.
African Children’s Charter Project (ACCP) partners (including Community Law Centre) met in Nairobi (Kenya), last week to come up with timelines and agree upon specific activities to be delivered within the remaining time of the implementation of the ACCP. Drs Maria Assim and Aquinaldo Mandlate from the Children’s Rights Project of the Community Law Centre were part of this 3 day workshop for the mid-year review of the ACCP.
Prof Lukas Muntingh, a project head at Community Law Centre’s Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative,has written an interesting opinion article in today’s Mail&Guardian on the assault case against former SAPS warrant officers David Gunn and Gerrit Januarie.
To discuss and debate constitutional and legal challenges stifling cities, especially those in federal and quasi-federal states such as Ethiopia and South Africa, Research Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Policy at the Community Law Centre and Centre for Federal Studies at Addis Ababa University organised a seminar in June.
During the 2014 annual general meeting, the Community Law Centre bid farewell to its board member, Professor Renfrew Christie as he retires from the University of the Western Cape as the Dean of Research.
Last week, a researcher at the Community Law Centre’s Children’s Rights Project, Dr Aquinaldo Mandlate delivered an expert paper on the protection of children’s rights in the African regional system. The paper focused on the normative framework and the institutional mechanisms to advance children’s rights in Africa. It was presented during a children’s rights seminar hosted by the Law Faculty at the Universidade Agostinho Neto in Luanda, Angola.
When there is formation of a federation, there will usually be a dispute on where the capital should be, these are the words from Professor Nico Steytler the Research Chair in Multilevel Government, Law and Policy at the Community Law Centre.
As South Africa’s executive under the ANC government has been enlarged and strengthened, proposed changes to the country’s national parliament seem set to weaken its capacity for oversight.
On Tuesday 3 June 2014, hundreds of people occupying a piece of land at Nomzamo settlement in Strand woke up to the shock of their lives when their homes were razed down and violently evicted from a piece of land they were occupying. The Socioeconomic Rights Project at the Community Law Centre (CLC), University of the Western Cape expresses its deep concern regarding the manner of eviction of residents of Lwandle, Strand, who were purportedly to be illegally occupying a piece of land belonging to SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral).
The Multilevel Government Initiative at the Community Law Centre’s views on the Infrastructure Development Bill, currently before Parliament, featured strongly at the Infrastructure Dialogue of 6 February.
The director of Community Law Centre wrote an opinion article addressing the issue where some officials expressed concerns over the opening of an Adult World sex shop right in front of parliament.
The Multilevel Government Initiative (MLGI) of the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) released a research report, Operation Clean Audit 2014: Why it Failed and What Can Be Learned, and its companion OCA 2014 Barometer, which extracts key statistical information from the report.