The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in conjunction with the United Nations Capital Development Fund appointed Prof Jaap De Visser to review Lesotho’s Local government Act. This is in line with the country’s efforts to bring its Local Government Act of 1997 in line with this policy.
Today, Community Law Centre hosted a lunchtime talk on police impunity, entitled: From Ficksburg to Ferguson, or Andries Tatane to Michael Brown: Challenges to police accountability in South Africa and the United States. The speakers were Prof Rodney Uphoff (University of Missouri) and Prof Lukas Muntingh and Gwen Dereymaeker (Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative).
Yesterday, Parliament’s portfolio committee on Justice and Correctional Services started with day one of public hearings into the controversial amendments to the Sexual Offences Legislation that aim to decriminalise consenting sexual activity between teenagers in the same age group.
The Government of South Africa is hosting the fourth expert group meeting for the revision of these rules from 2-5 March 2015. Lukas Muntingh of CSPRI is attending as an independent observer.
On 2 March 2015, Professor Ebenezer Durojaye, the project head of the socio-economic rights, was part of a delegation convined the Department of Women Affairs within the Presidency. This was for an interactive session with members of civil society groups and government departments regarding South Africa’s report to the UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Both the number of civic protests and the prevalence of violence increased in 2014. In 2007 just less than half the protests were associated with some violence, but in 2014 almost 80% of protests involved violence in some form.
Lukas Muntingh has testified on the position of St. Alban's prison within the South African Department of Correctional Services in the civil lawsuit brought by 231 inmates from St Albans prison, which resumed in the Port Elizabeth High Court on 2 February 2015.
Today the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services was briefed by the Department on an amendment bill to the Sexual Offences Act, which deals with the issues of consenting sexual activity between adolescents and with the placing of the names of child offenders on the National Register for Sex Offenders.
Children’s Rights Project head at the Community Law Centre, Prof Benyam Dawit Mezmur, is one of the 18 independent experts that took part in the 68th Session of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child held in Geneva in January 2015, where he serves as a Vice-Chairperson.
South Africa’s Ratification Campaign of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and its Optional Protocol welcomes South Africa’s ratification of the ICESCR on 12 January 2015. As stipulated in section 27(2) of the ICESCR, it will come into force for South Africa on 12 April 2015, which is three months after the deposit of the instrument of ratification.
Constitutional amendments of 1990 and 2004 meant that the Criminal Code of 1886 no longer was in line with the political, social, cultural and economic reality of Mozambique. This revision of the of Criminal Code is intended to ensure the enjoyment of rights and freedoms of citizens.
The Parliamentary Programme at the Community Law Centre hosted a civil society meeting to discuss the state reporting process of the South African Government and civil society before the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
