News

Rwanda scraps over 1000 colonial-era laws
Author: Jean
Published: 27 Sep 2019
The New Times reports that The Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye, told the newspaper in a telephone interview that this step finally means that Rwandans can now be fully governed by the laws that they have made themselves. The said laws were enacted between 1885 and 1962, when Rwanda obtained independence from Belgium.
Petty offences Rwanda ACJR News
Rwanda scraps over 1000 colonial-era laws
Author: Jean
Published: 27 Sep 2019
The New Times reports that The Minister of Justice, Johnston Busingye, told the newspaper in a telephone interview that this step finally means that Rwandans can now be fully governed by the laws that they have made themselves. The said laws were enacted between 1885 and 1962, when Rwanda obtained independence from Belgium.
Petty offences Rwanda ACJR News
SERP team attends UN Summit on Sustainable Development
Author: Jacob
Published: 26 Sep 2019
The Socioeconomic Rights Project and its partners participated in the UN Summit on Sustainable Development that took place in New York from 22-25 September in New York. This Summit was a gathering of Heads of State to deliberate on and assess the commitments made under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). At the Summit, SERP participated in some side events organised by civil society groups.
Panel looks into reducing number of children deprived of their liberty
Author: Jacob
Published: 24 Sep 2019
On 23 September 2019, Prof Benyam Mezmur, head of the Children's Rights Project, was part of the panel at a side event of the 24th Human Rights Council Session in Geneva. The event was to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and it was organised by the African Union Ambassadors to Geneva.
Can Zimbabwe walk the talk of devolution?
Author: Tinashe Carlton Chigwata
Published: 20 Sep 2019
The vertical organisation of the state remains a thorn in a flesh in post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. Various forms of multilevel systems of government have been established throughout the continent, from federalism in Ethiopia (1996), Nigeria (1999) and South Sudan (2011); devolution in Kenya (2010) and South Africa (1996); to decentralised unitary systems in Uganda (1995) and Namibia (1990). These systems, which are often entrenched in the respective constitutions of these countries, have been adopted to advance the realisation of certain objectives linked to development, democracy and peace. National integration and the deepening of democracy in South Africa and many other countries is to a certain extent attributed to decentralised governance. However, some of these systems are not working well, especially on the development front, despite having been in place for some time. Others are yet to function effectively as they have not gained the much needed traction.
Local Government Bulletin lgb-local-government-africa
Municipalities are not off the hook for food security
Author: Jaap
Published: 20 Sep 2019
Food security is typically and administratively considered the exclusive concerns of national and provincial government, but a plausible case can be made that municipalities should and can also play a role.
lgb-powers-functions lgb-health-trade-policing Local Government Bulletin
Impact of the declaration of invalidity of the Municipal Systems Amendment Act of 2011
Author: Henry Gichana
Published: 20 Sep 2019
Background: On 9 March 2017, the Constitutional Court (the Court) confirmed a decision of the High Court, which had declared the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Act, 2011 (Amendment Act) unconstitutional and entirely invalid. The Amendment Act had mainly sought to make changes to the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act of 2000 (Principal Act) while making a minor related amendment to the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act of 1998. The process of its enactment had wrongly followed the procedure laid out under section 75 of the Constitution instead of the appropriate procedure under section 76. The Court confirmed this invalidity in the case of South African Municipal Workers’ Union v Minister of Cooperative Governance & Traditional Affairs and Others [2017] ZACC 7.
Local Government Bulletin lgb-governance