The unspoken: Unsafe abortion in The Gambia and the necessity for legal reform
Posted: 13 March, 2018 Filed under: Satang Nabaneh | Tags: back street abortions, family planning, Gambia, health care, illegal abortion, medical cost, Penal Code, religious traditions, restrictive abortion laws, The Gambia Family Planning Association, unsafe abortion, unwanted pregnancy, Women’s Act, women’s sexual and reproductive rights 2 Comments
Author: Satang Nabaneh
Project Officer, Women Rights Unit, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
In the Gambian context, the right of women to an informed choice and access to family planning and appropriate health-care service remains contentious due to the socio-cultural and religions dimensions. Being a society where deep-seated traditions and the Islamic religion play a major part in the life of a person and society, issues of sexuality and procreation are generally interpreted accordingly.
The Gambia has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in Africa, which criminalises abortion based on colonially inherited penal code (Criminal Code, Act no. 25 of 1933). The Criminal Code follows the abortion law as provided in the English Offences against the Person Act of 1861 and subsequent interpretation by the Courts such as in the 1938 case of R v Bourne (3 ALL ER 615, [1939] 1 KB 687).
Violence against women and girls in Africa: A global concern to ponder on International Women’s Day and beyond
Posted: 8 March, 2018 Filed under: Kennedy Kariseb | Tags: Africa, conflict, education, empowerment, feminism, girls, human rights, international human rights, international law, International Women's Day, IWD, IWD2018, pandemic, sexual violence, SRVAW, treaty, UN, United Nations, VAW, violence, violence against women, women, women's human rights, women's rights, women's rights movement 2 Comments
Author: Kennedy Kariseb
Doctoral candidate, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
It has been four decades since the United Nations (UN) observed for the first time International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8 March 1975. Although there are traces of celebration of this day, dating as far back as 1909, its formal initiation came in the wake of the first World Conference of the International Women’s Year that took place in Mexico City, Mexico. Its object, as aptly argued by Temma Kaplan, is to mark ‘the occasion for a new sense of female consciousness and a new sense of feminist internationalism’.[i]
In a sense, 8 March is meant to be a day of both celebration and reflection for women the world over: a celebration of the gains made in enhancing women’s rights and the overall status of women globally, while reflecting and strategising on the voids and shortcomings still persistent in the women’s rights discourse. The occasion of the forty-third celebration of the IWD clearly marks an opportunity for feminist introspection on the broader question of violence against Women (VAW) and its regulation under international law. This is because while VAW is not the only form of human rights abuse women suffer, it is one in which the gendered aspect of such abuse is often the most clear and pervasive.
The right to health for refugees in South Africa: Concrete reality or wishful thinking?
Posted: 13 December, 2017 Filed under: Cristiano d'Orsi | Tags: 2003 National Health Act, African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights, CEDAW, domestic law, health services, healthcare services, ICERD, ICESCR, National Strategic Health Plan, OHCHR, political rights, refugee convention, refugees, right to health, right to health care, SAHRC, socio-economic rights, South Africa, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, xenophobia 1 Comment
Author: Cristiano d’Orsi
Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg
Scope of the study: How the ‘right to health’ is intended in this work
South Africa (SA) is one of the largest economies in Africa. Since December 2010 the country is a member of the informal association of five major emerging world economies (BRICS) and the only African country to be a member of the G20, the major international forum for economic cooperation and policymaking.
At the end of 2016, SA was reported to be hosting 91,043 refugees.
Although SA has ratified a good number of human rights legal instruments since the end of apartheid, in 1994, , the actual implementation of the rights enshrined in some of them still remain problematic. One such right is the right of refugees to have access to adequate healthcare in the country.
This situation occurs also because access healthcare services in SA, as with many other fundamental rights in the republic, has historically been biased in terms of a number of arbitrary grounds (p. 55).
Where is democracy? Reflections on the ascendancy of Mnangagwa as president of Zimbabwe
Posted: 27 November, 2017 Filed under: Charles Ngwena | Tags: Ayi Kwei Armah, constitution, coup, democracy, dictatorship, elections, Emmerson Mnangagwa, ethnic cleansing, Gukurahundi, Matebeleland, military, military intervention, national army, political change, Robert Mugabe, white minority rule, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Defence Force 3 Comments
Author: Charles Ngwena
Professor of Law, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
What seemed unimaginable has happened. After an uninterrupted ‘reign’ of 37 years, Robert Mugabe, the de facto emperor of Zimbabwe, has ‘resigned’ from office. There has been genuine jubilation not least among those who have been at the receiving end of Mugabe’s increasingly despotic, corrupt and dysfunctional governance – the majority of Zimbabweans. Emmerson Mnangagwa has taken office as Mugabe’s successor. It is a historic moment. Since attaining independence in 1980, Zimbabweans have only known Mugabe as their political supremo – initially as prime minister and latterly as president. The fact of Mugabe’s departure from office, alone, has raised hopes that we might be at the cusp of a compassionate, fairer, humane and democratic Second Republic. At the same time, the clouds are pregnant with contradictions, counselling us not to throw caution aside even as we pine for change. Why is this?
The African Court: Need for a system-based approach to jurisprudential affirmation
Posted: 16 November, 2017 Filed under: Sègnonna Horace Adjolohoun | Tags: advisory matters, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Court, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, ‘introspective’ jurisprudence, criticised, Inoperative Advisory Mandate, international human rights law, Memorandum of Understanding, Observer Status, raison d’être, Remedial powers, system, unconstitutional 5 Comments
Author: Sègnonna Horace Adjolohoun
Visiting Professor of international human rights law and comparative African constitutional law, Central European University;
Extraordinary Lecturer, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Principal Legal Officer, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
This article is a summarised version of a much longer commentary which shall be published subsequently.
The views expressed below are exclusively those of the author and not of the African Court.
THE IMPERATIVE OF SYSTEM-BASED LAW MAKING
When the African Court became operational in 2006, the expectation was that it will affirm the then widely criticised African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights rather than merely “judicialise” the system. The Court therefore bears the historical duty to adopt a system strengthening approach to judicial law-making. As it makes law over the years, it becomes paramount to vet the Court’s pronouncements against that raison d’être. I attempt to do so with respect to its recent decisions.
ADVISORY MATTERS
Substantively, the requests related to a varied range of matters that are both current and novel, ranging from the meaning and scope of the role of the African Union policy organs to ‘consider’ the Activity Report of the African Human Rights Commission to the modalities of litigating the crime of unconstitutional change of government. Unfortunately, the Court did not assert jurisdiction to pronounce itself on the merit of those issues.
Conscientious Objection: African reflections on Colombian abortion decision T-388/09, by Charles G. Ngwena
Posted: 1 November, 2017 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Congratulations to Charles Ngwena of the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, whose 2014 article in the Journal of African Law is now available online.
Women’s Reproductive Health Rights: Reflections on a Decision of the Constitutional Court of Colombia from an African Regional Human Rights Perspective.Journal of African Law, 58 (2014): 183-209 Article now online.
Abstract and Overview: If applied in isolation from the fundamental rights of women seeking abortion services, the right to conscientious objection can render any given rights to abortion illusory, including the rights to health, life, equality and dignity that are attendant to abortion. A transformative understanding of human rights requires that the right to conscientious objection to abortion be construed in a manner that is subject to the correlative duties which are imposed on the conscientious objector, as…
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Recalibrating Nigeria’s Whistleblowing Policy: An urgent plea for a comprehensive whistleblower protection legislation
Posted: 18 October, 2017 Filed under: Olabisi Delebayo Akinkugbe | Tags: immoral practices, NACS, National Anti-Corruption Strategy, Nigeria, Nigerian government, socio-political factors, transparency, whistleblower protection, whistleblowers 1 Comment
Author: Olabisi D Akinkugbe
PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa, Canada
This short essay draws attention to the current gap in regulatory framework for the protection of whistleblowers in Nigeria and its potential to derail any meaningful sustained and long-term success of the country’s nascent whistleblower program. The other socio-political factors that would contribute to the effectiveness of the program in Nigeria are discussed in a forthcoming article by the author.
Whistleblowing refers to the public interest disclosure of information by members of an organization or government employees about illegal and immoral practices by other employees or other persons who deal with the organization, such as contractors, in the case of public governance. Employees are often the first to recognize malpractice, fraud, dishonest and illegal activity, or other wrongdoing with potential impact on the public interest. As a public governance integrity enhancing mechanism, it is primarily linked to encouraging and enhancing the public disclosure of wrongdoing in order to improve accountability and transparency.
The unclear relation between Angola and its Muslim citizens and migrants: Is Angola discriminating against them?
Posted: 6 October, 2017 Filed under: Cristiano d'Orsi | Tags: Angola, Angolan Constitution, Angolan Muslims, discrimination, freedom of religion, human rights, illegal immigration, ISIS, Islamic, Islamic Community of Angola, Islamic State terror group, John Locke, Law on Religion, Manuel Fernando, religion, Rosa Cruz da Silva 2 CommentsAuthor: Cristiano d’Orsi
Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg
Angola is a country where the traditional Islamic relation between Muhajirun (‘immigrants’) and Ansar (‘helpers’: locals)[1] seems not to find a fertile ground. Islam in Angola represents a minority religion, with an estimate number of proselytes amounting to approximately 1%[2] of the entire population.[3] These are mostly Sunnis who arrived in Angola from West Africa,[4] Somalia[5] and from families of Lebanese descent[6] following the end of the Angolan Civil War in 2002.
Historically, as many of these immigrants entered Angola illegally, which created the misperception of associating Islam with illegal immigration and crime (almost predominantly counterfeiting of money and money laundering), although barely any evidence of this has been proved.[7] This was affirmed by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief on her visit to the country in 2007.[8]
South Africa: Expulsion of pregnant students violated constitutional rights
Posted: 3 October, 2017 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commentMany thanks to Godfrey Kangaude, LL.M. (UFS), LL.M. (UCLA), an LL.D. candidate at the University of Pretoria and Executive Director of Nyale Institute for Sexual and Reproductive Health Governance in Malawi, for summarizing this decision with Y. Kakhobwe in Legal Grounds III: Reproductive and Sexual Rights in Sub-Saharan African Courts, published by Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) in 2017. 228-pages online Flyer with Table of Contents. New online edition with links to decisions and analyses.
Head of Department, Department of Education, Free State Province v. Welkom High School & another; Head of Department, Department of Education, Free State Province v. Harmony High School & another (CCT 103/12) [2013] ZACC 25, 2013 (9) BCLR 989(CC); 2014 (2) SA 228 (CC) (10 July 2013) Constitutional Court of South Africa Decision online. Case summary by G. Kangaude and Y. Kakhobwe.
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Kidnappings in Nigeria as a class act: Implications for the criminal justice system
Posted: 18 September, 2017 Filed under: Akinola Akintayo | Tags: abductors, ‘Evans’, Chukwudubem George Onwuamadike, class act, criminal justice system, inequality, kidnapping, Nigeria, personal enrichment, ransom, targeting of the rich 3 Comments
Author: Dr Akinola Akintayo
Lecturer and researcher in the Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, Nigeria
Nigeria is a country steeped in inequality. Reports indicate that a minimum of 86 of the 140 or so million Nigerians live in extreme poverty. The country’s richest individuals are also said to earn 8,000 times each day what their poor counterparts spends on basic necessaries in a year. To further underscore the severe level of inequality, studies also indicate that the combined wealth of the top five richest Nigerians can end extreme poverty in the country. That is how bad the income and wealth gap in Nigeria is.
However, this kind of inequality underpinned by exploitative and oppressive capitalist mode of production tends to weaken what some scholars have referred to as the ‘social instinct’ and breeds discontent, opposition and conflicts between society’s classes. In this kind of clime, the less privileged and deprived members of the society may well feel entitled, either within or without the law, to demand what they considered their own fair share of the commonwealth from the more opulent part of the society. The main purpose of this short piece is to interrogate emerging evidence which suggests that recent dimensions of kidnappings in Nigeria is a class act where the deprived class may be demanding what they perceived as their fair share from the more opulent class and examine the omens that this bids for the criminal justice system.
AfricLaw 