Seminar on child rights litigation in Eastern and Southern Africa

The Centre together with Save the Children Sweden hosted a seminar on Strategic Impact Litigation on Children’s Rights in Eastern and Southern Africa. The seminar was held over a 3 day period, from the 31^st of October to the 2^nd of November 2011. Participants invited to attend the seminar were from a number of southern and eastern African countries. These participants were representative of various civil society organizations and legal practitioners  all interested in and working towards the advancement and enforcement of children’s rights.

Seminar on Strategic Impact Litigation on Children’s Rights in Eastern and Southern Africa

Strategic impact litigation, as a tool to advance and protect children’s rights, is used by very few practitioners and is not widely known and understood. The aim of the seminar was increase the participants’ awareness and understanding of strategic impact litigation as a tool to advance the rights of children in their respective countries.

A number of speakers gave presentations at the seminar, giving our participants an overview of different elements of strategic litigation could be used in relation to children’s rights. Ann Skelton and Karabo Ngidi gave presentations on the first day on the nature of strategic impact litigation, such as

• The ideal socio-political environment
• Standing
• Timing: mootness and ripeness
• Choosing the right cases and clients
• Legal representation of children: Protection v participation

The second day of the seminar was spent in Johannesburg with Justice Albie Sachs. The former judge of the Constitutional Court gave the seminar participants a guided tour of the Constitutional Court and a talk on children’s rights litigation from a judge’s perspective. Thereafter Advocate Steven Budlender of the Johannesburg Bar discussed the kinds of remedies available in litigation. Lastly Nicole Fritz and Abede Bhamjee from the Southern African Litigation Centre discussed strategic impact litigation in Southern Africa with particular reference to the Moyo case, a case that they were involved in.

On the last day of the seminar, Professor Michelo Hansungule of the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria discussed the different ways in which African regional mechanisms can be used to protect and enforce children’s rights. Partick Geary from the Child Rights Information Network (based in London), gave a presentation on an international database of decisions that refer to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The seminar ended with participants discussing a plan and exchanging ideas on what cases might be brought in their respective countries.

Seminar Report

Second Annual Child Law Moot Court Competition

The Centre hosted its second annual Child Law Moot Court Competition on 16 and 17 September 2011. The teams that took part in the competition were from the University of Johannesburg, Rhodes University, the University of Pretoria and North West University.

This year’s problem centered around a father’s attempt to prevent the mother of his daughter from relocating to another country, this relocation in his view would result in him not being able to develop a relationship with is daughter as the country to which they were relocating considered homosexuality a crime and he was homosexual.

The teams all showed themselves to be well prepared and researched on the various legal aspects of the problem presented to them. Rhodes University and University of Pretoria competed in the final round and Rhodes University emerged as winners. The University of Pretoria team had the best heads of argument and best speaker.