Questions at the Interface Between Automated Decision Making, Administrative Law and Socio‑Economic Rights: The Example of Access to Affordable Housing in Kenya
Posted: 18 March, 2022 Filed under: Alexander Beyleveld | Tags: Access to Affordable Housing, ADM, ADM technologies, administrative law, Affordable Homes Program, automated decision-making, automated processing, constitutional law, CRD System, data protection legislation, freedom from discrimination, fundamental rights, Kenya Data Protection Act, policy framework, right to equality 2 Comments
Author: Alexander Beyleveld
Senior Researcher at the Mandela Institute, University of the Witwatersrand
A number of African governments have begun to integrate automated decision-making (ADM) into processes that give effect to fundamental rights, which has given rise to a number of interesting questions about the manner in which different areas of law interact in ADM contexts. ADM has thus far been most directly regulated by data protection legislation, such as the Kenya Data Protection Act (KDPA). Automated decisions, however, also implicate administrative law, and constitutionally enshrined rights related to administrative action. An additional layer of complexity is added in situations where automated decisions form part of the process governments have elected to use to give effect to fundamental rights, especially when a number of different rights are implicated. Understanding the interface between ADM, data protection laws, administrative law and constitutional law, then, will only continue to grow in importance in assessing the extent to which governments are giving effect to certain fundamental rights – as well as for assessing the extent to which governments and individuals are actually reaping the potential benefits of ADM technologies in the first place.
Why Angola should ratify the African Protocol on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Beyond the legal imperative
Posted: 11 August, 2021 Filed under: Eduardo Kapapelo | Tags: Africa, African Disability Rights Protocol, African Protocol on the rights of Persons with Disabilities, Angola, ‘shellshock’, civil war, constitutional law, disability, disability rights, human rights, human rights violations, intellectual disabilities, Kalashnikov, military casualties, post-conflict, post-conflict state, psychological, psychology, PTSD, rule of law, shellshock, social norms, Sudan, Syria, trauma, Vietnam, violence, violent conflict, war, World War II, Yemen Leave a comment
Author: Eduardo Kapapelo
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
One of the main objectives of international and regional law is to ensure the widest scope of human rights and welfare. It has been reasoned that when the physical and mental health of individuals is promoted and safeguarded societies have a better chance of establishing peaceful societies in the aftermath of violent conflict.
Some of the earliest literature has identified that a significant proportion of military casualties are psychological. Such literature which has focused heavily from the perspective of soldiers who have had to fight and ultimately kill on the battlefield to a large extent neglected to adopt a wider scope – to include the civilian population who often receives the brunt of such violence in war-time.
To achieve transformation, Kenyan law needs to shun a hierarchy of sources
Posted: 17 August, 2015 Filed under: Humphrey Sipalla | Tags: constitutional law, dualism, echanistic jurisprudence, hierarchy of sources, ICCPR, ICJ, international law, ius cogens, Kenya, law enforcement, law reform, monism, transformation, transformative constitutionalism, Uhuru Park, use of force, Wangari Maathai 3 Comments
Author: Humphrey Sipalla
Freelance editor
It is opined by some in Kenya that the regime of former President Moi hardly broke constitutional law. For the most part, it rather, applying provisos and rigid compartmentalised thinking, bended and stretched it absurdly. There may be some truth to this. Previously on this platform, I opined that Kenyan society is prone to absolutes, in that instance, equating legitimate use of force with its disproportionate immoral use in “law enforcement”. It would seem that the legal fraternity too suffers its own peculiar version of this Kenyan tendency to be rigid.
At a conference on transformative constitutionalism, Prof. Ambreena Manji noted that for Kenya to realise the aims of its visionary transformative constitution, we needed a certain conversion of the soul, not just the mind, of the Kenyan jurist. At this same conference, the Chief Justice of Kenya, Dr Willy Mutunga lamented the old judiciary’s reliance of “mechanistic jurisprudence”. Such judicial policy led to the dismissal of the late Wangari Maathai’s (later Nobel Peace Prize Laureate) 1989 case against government plans to build a 60 storey building on Nairobi’s Uhuru Park as she did not show what injury would befall her were the environment to be spoilt. In 1989 too, the High Court held that the Bill of Rights could not be enforced as the Chief Justice had not issued enforcement rules as obligated by the Constitution. In 1993, again, presidential candidate, Kenneth Matiba’s election petition ground to a halt as he was unable to serve the sitting president with suit papers personally.
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 23 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?’
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