The State’s ineptitude or indisposition to deal with Eastern Cape education is a continuous violation of children’s rights
Posted: 16 May, 2013 Filed under: Akho Ntanjana | Tags: ACERWC, children's rights, constitution, Constitutional Court, CRC, Eastern Cape, education, empowerment, human rights, ICESRC, Kenya, Nubian children, President Zuma, right to education, schools, Section 100, Section 26, South Africa, UNICEF, United Nations, women 1 Comment
Author: Akho Ntanjana
Legal intern, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), Banjul, The Gambia
Without citing any empirical evidence, it is known that the quality of school facilities has an indirect effect on learning and ultimately on its output. For instance, in a study carried out in India (1996), out of 59 schools in a region, only 49 had structures. Of these 49 schools, 25 had a toilet, 20 had electricity, 10 had a school library and four had a television set. In this study, the quality of the learning environment was strongly correlated with pupils’ achievement in Hindi and mathematics.
Further, a research study was conducted in Latin America that included 50 000 students in grades 3 and 4, it was found that learners whose schools lacked classroom materials and had inadequate libraries were significantly more likely to show lower test scores and higher grade repetition than those whose schools were well equipped (see the United Nations Children’s Fund’s paper ‘Defining Quality Education’). There are many other studies done even in Africa, for example in Botswana, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea, indicating similar outcomes.
There seem to be a correlation between good school infrastructures, other quality dimensions (inter alia the quality of content, psychological aspects, quality processes involved) and the achievement of higher grades by learners. In this opinion piece, I examine the state of education in the Eastern Cape, and the failure by the South Africa government to meet its constitutional and international obligations to provide basic education.
The Death Penalty and the Right to Life in the Draft Constitutions of Zambia and Zimbabwe
Posted: 18 April, 2013 Filed under: Andrew Novak | Tags: burden of proof, constitution, death penalty, extenuating circumstances, India, right to life, South Africa, United States of America, Zambia, Zimbabwe Leave a comment
Author: Andrew Novak
Adjunct Professor of African Law, American University Washington College of Law and incoming Adjunct Professor of Criminology, Law, and Society, George Mason University
On 16 March 2013, Zimbabwean voters overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution, which contains a right to life provision that dramatically scaled back the scope of the death penalty. The new constitution restricts the death penalty only to aggravated homicide and requires a judge to consider all mitigating factors in order to dispense a death sentence. The death penalty is a prohibited sentence for women and persons under the age 21 or over the age 70. The new constitution also establishes a constitutional right for prisoners to seek commutation or pardon from the executive. The death penalty was abolished for non-homicide offences, including treason, a notoriously politicised charge in recent years. Newspaper reports indicated that the Cabinet would review the cases of each of the current 72 death row inmates, even though a new hangman was hired in February 2013 after a twelve-year long search. The two women on death row would have their sentences automatically commuted.
Ensuring access to essential medicines through the inclusion of the right to health in the Mauritian Constitution
Posted: 5 March, 2013 Filed under: Ashwanee Budoo | Tags: African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, constitution, Doha Declaration, HIV/Aids, human rights, International Covenant on Economic, Mauritius, medicines, public health, right to health, right to life, Social and Cultural Rights, TRIPS, World Trade Organisation 1 Comment
Author: Ashwanee Budoo
Full-time candidate for the Law Practitioners Vocational Course in Mauritius
The right to health is protected by various international and regional instruments such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (article 25), the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (article 12) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (article 16) and being a party to these instruments, Mauritius has the obligation to ensure that its citizens’ right to health is protected. One aspect of the right to health is the right to access essential medicines. Essential medicines have been defined by the World Health Organisation as those which satisfy the health care needs of a majority of the population. In view of fulfilling this right Mauritius, a welfare state, provides for free essential medicines in government hospitals, area health centres and community health centres.
Prisoners too have a right to determine the government of their choice
Posted: 6 February, 2013 Filed under: William Aseka | Tags: constitution, disenfranchisement, elections, Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, Kenya, prisoners, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, voting 10 Comments
Author: William Aseka
Program Assistant (Human Rights Advocacy for Children with Disabilities), Governance Consulting
One of the most critical ways that individuals can influence governmental decision-making is through voting. Voting is a formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue. Voting generally takes place in the context of a large-scale national or regional election, however, local and small-scale community elections can be just as critical to individual participation in government.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, recognizes the integral role that transparent and open elections play in ensuring the fundamental right to participatory government. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly stipulates under Article 21:
Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his/her country, directly or through freely chosen representatives. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot or by equivalent free voting procedures. (Emphasis mine)
In fact just five years after the end of the reign of the apartheid government of South Africa, the country’s constitutional court addressed one of the most profound issues facing the new democracy. The case involved a challenge to the denial of voting rights for citizens incarcerated in South African prisons and raised the fundamental issue of the meaning of democracy, one that was particularly poignant in a society in which such questions had been restricted from public debate. In his written decision for the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Justice Albie Sachs declared, “Rights may not be limited without justification and legislation dealing with the franchise must be interpreted in favor of enfranchisement rather than disenfranchisement.”
Human rights are inherent to all, criminals or not – even in Kenya
Posted: 8 November, 2012 Filed under: Humphrey Sipalla | Tags: constitution, crime, human rights, Kenya, Marikana, police, separatist, use of force, violence 2 Comments
Author: Humphrey Sipalla
Publications and Communications Officer at the Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA)
The whole world watched with horror the events in Marikana, South Africa and even worse, the manner in which the police defended their actions ultimately including the arrest and charging of some of the striking mine workers.
South Africa is not alone in these twisted perceptions of the morality of state monopoly of violence. Kenya is witnessing the re-awakening of a state-centric oxymoronic violent morality. In the last few weeks, after a High Court decision declared illegal the proscription of the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), this separatist movement, misguidedly revived and threatened to disrupt national school leaving exams among other separatist acts. A police crackdown ensued, culminating on 15 October 2012 with the arrest of 38 persons at the house of the MRC Chairman, Omar Mwamnuadzi. Two people were killed, a gun and 15 rounds of ammunition recovered together with several petrol bombs, including one that was hurled at the officers conducting the raid.
A true glimmer of hope or a mere mirage? Term and age limits in the ‘new’ Ethiopia
Posted: 15 October, 2012 Filed under: Adem Kassie Abebe | Tags: constitution, constitutional amendments, Ethiopia, governance, leadership, rule of law, Terms and age limits 1 Comment
Author: Adem Kassie Abebe
Doctoral candidate, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
After spending more than 21 years at the helm of Ethiopian politics, Meles Zenawi died of an unannounced sickness in August 2012. The absolute dominance of the ruling party, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), facilitated the smooth transition of power to the former Deputy Prime Minister, Halemariam Desalegn. Following the confirmation of Hailemariam as the new Prime Minister, the EPRDF announced that it has imposed, as part of its succession policy, two five-year term limits on all ministerial positions, including the position of the Prime Minster.The Party has also set a maximum age limit on the same positions. Henceforth, a Minister cannot be more than 65 years of age.
The Illusion of the Ugandan Constitution
Posted: 27 September, 2012 Filed under: Busingye Kabumba | Tags: constitution, constitutional law, democracy, Museveni, National Resistance Movement, rule of law, Uganda 25 Comments
Author: Busingye Kabumba
Lecturer-in-Law, Human Rights and Peace Centre (HURIPEC), Faculty of Law, Makerere University; Consulting Partner with M/S Development Law Associates
For the past few years, it has been my privilege to teach Constitutional Law at Makerere, the nation’s oldest University. As it is a first year course, I am one of the first teachers who meet with the young impressionable minds that are similarly privileged to gain admission to the law programme. In the course of class discussions, it quickly becomes obvious that even these fresh minds are cynical about the state of constitutionalism in our country, an impression that is only made stronger when we begin to delve into the text and the promise of the 1995 constitution and to compare this not only with our Constitutional history but with the present reality of how the country is being governed. I try as much as possible in these discussions to refrain from infusing my own views into these debates, my intention being to demonstrate the method of constitutional argument and to encourage critical thinking and reflection rather than suggest that there is a ‘right’ answer – which indeed, many times, there is not. This is often frustrating for the students whose constant refrain is: ‘But what is your view?’
Nine Judicial Executions in The Gambia Undermine the Rule of Law
Posted: 30 August, 2012 Filed under: Andrew Novak | Tags: Amnesty International, constitution, coup, death penalty, death row, executions, rule of law, The Gambia, treason 6 Comments
Author: Andrew Novak
Adjunct Professor of African Law, American University Washington College of Law
Late at night on 23 August2012 the President of The Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, ordered the executions of nine death row inmates despite international condemnation and even division in his own cabinet. At least three of the death sentences were for the crime of treason; the remaining cases involved murder. Two of the nine were Senegalese nationals, and at least one had been on death row since before the current death penalty law entered into force. These cases are constitutionally troubling and may erode the rule of law in The Gambia, Sub-Saharan Africa’s smallest mainland country with a population of 1,3-million.
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