Constitutional jurisdiction and the right to happiness
Posted: 1 April, 2016 Filed under: Saul Leal | Tags: Centre on Housing Rights and Eviction, Community Law Centre, constitution, Constitutional Court, Council of Censors, Delft, fundamental right, Greatest Happiness principle, Hans Kelsen, happiness, individualism, Joshua Greene, judiciary, Langa, law, normative acts, right to dignity, right to happiness, utilitarian doctrine 7 Comments
Author: Saul Leal
Vice-Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA)
Should it be a role of the Judiciary to assure happiness for the people? Is it appropriate for a Constitutional Court to consider happiness to be a right? Does the establishment of fundamental rights expand the collective happiness? To answer these questions, it is essential to examine the root of Constitutional jurisdiction.
Karl Loewenstein questioned whether the Constitution would be “instrumental for the pursuit of happiness of the people”,[1] based on his intrigue into the purpose and meaning of a Constitution. He is accompanied by Hans Kelsen, for whom “the longing for justice is man’s eternal longing for happiness”.[2]
The answer to the aforementioned questions lies within the examination of the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, in the United States, in 1776, in order to address the power given to the courts to assess the constitutionality of the laws and of normative acts.
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 Leave a 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.
Regulating the sentencing of young offenders convicted of serious crimes: Case law from South Africa and the United States of America
Posted: 26 July, 2012 Filed under: Zita Hansungule | Tags: Centre for Child Law, children, Constitutional Court, criminal law, judgment, parole, sentencing, South Africa, Supreme Court of the United States, young offenders Leave a comment
Author: Zita Hansungule
Assistant Project Co-ordinator, Centre for Child Law, University of Pretoria
Is it constitutional to sentence young offenders according to laws providing for mandatory or minimum sentences? This was the central question raised and answered in two important judgments from the highest courts in South Africa and the United States of America.
On 25 June 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the sentencing of youths convicted of murder to mandatory life terms (without the possibility of parole) was in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court had before it two cases involving men who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole when they were both 14 years old. In both cases the courts sentencing them did not have the discretion in law to impose different punishments, as State law directed they “die in prison”.
AfricLaw 