The Cost of Separating Powers
Posted: 1 June, 2021 Filed under: Chris Himsworth, Linda Ajemba | Tags: COVID-19, discrimination i, government, health inequalities, human rights protection, lack of access to employment, mental conditions, mental health needs, psychosocial disability, SDGs, social environment, South Africa, Sustainable Development Goals Leave a comment
Author: Chris Himsworth
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom
It was reported on 28 April 2021 that authorities in Lesotho could not appoint a new High Court judge because of a lack of funds. While this might have come as a shock to most people, this will not have surprised the authors of the Report on the Independence of the Judiciary in the Kingdom of Lesotho, published only a month earlier in March. Chaired by Justice Zak Yacoob, former South African Constitutional Court Judge, a Working Group of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Lawyers’ Association had aired a trenchant critique of the current condition of judicial independence in Lesotho.
The ACtHPR: From the Politics of Gender to the Gender of Politics? Why Women’s Representation on the Bench is not Enough
Posted: 26 May, 2021 Filed under: Linda Ajemba | Tags: ACtHPR, African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Bureau of the Court, Court Protocol, elections of judges, female majority bench, Gender of Politics, gender parity, Politics of Gender, right of women Leave a comment
Authors: J. Jarpa Dawuni & Sègnonna H. Adjolohoun
In September 2018, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR or the Court) made history by swearing in two female judges, thereby bringing the Court’s composition to six women out of its 11 judges. The Court had thus achieved a female majority bench for the first time since its inception in 2006. The symbolic representation of women judges made the bench the most gender-balanced of all times. While women currently make up 55% of judges on the ACtHPR, they account for 35% of all judges since the Court was established, and only 20% of the leadership in the institution (i.e., two women have served in the Bureau versus eight men). In the following discussion, we analyse why women’s symbolic representation has not translated into their substantive leadership within the Court. We query whether the changes introduced to the Rules of Court in 2020, will be a catalyst for a sustainable women’s representation in the Court’s Bureau in the elections slated for 31 May 2021.
Using evidence in the time of COVID-19 to reduce health inequalities for Persons with Psychosocial Disability in South Africa
Posted: 27 April, 2021 Filed under: Linda Ajemba | Tags: COVID-19, discrimination i, government, health inequalities, human rights protection, lack of access to employment, mental conditions, mental health needs, psychosocial disability, SDGs, social environment, South Africa, Sustainable Development Goals 1 Comment
Author: Linda Ajemba
LLD candidate, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
The ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had an unparalleled impact on all spheres of life globally. As with other disasters, evidence shows that while the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic threatens all members of the society, it disproportionately affects persons with psychosocial disabilities. Persons with psychosocial disability refers to individuals suffering from a spectrum of mental conditions that influence their feelings, perceptions and behaviors. A psychosocial disability arises when someone with a mental health condition interacts with a social environment that presents barriers to their equality with others. Persons with psychosocial disabilities are greatly impacted by diverse response measures employed by governments across the globe to curb the pandemic.
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