Quote of the week
Universal adult suffrage on a common voters roll is one of the foundational values of our entire constitutional order. The achievement of the franchise has historically been important both for the acquisition of the rights of full and effective citizenship by all South Africans regardless of race, and for the accomplishment of an all-embracing nationhood. The universality of the franchise is important not only for nationhood and democracy. The vote of each and every citizen is a badge of dignity and of personhood. Quite literally, it says that everybody counts. In a country of great disparities of wealth and power it declares that whoever we are, whether rich or poor, exalted or disgraced, we all belong to the same democratic South African nation; that our destinies are intertwined in a single interactive polity.
August and Another v Electoral Commission and Others (CCT8/99) [1999] ZACC 3
Call for papers: Conference in Honour of Pius Langa at UCT
Call for Papers:
UCT / Acta Juridica Conference in Honour of Former Chief Justice Pius Langa
On 16-17 January 2014, the UCT Law Faculty, in association with Acta Juridica, will host a two-day conference examining and celebrating the jurisprudence of former Chief Justice Pius Langa. Justice Langa made a tremendous contribution to South Africa’s constitutional democracy at a crucial period in our legal and political history. His life serves as an inspiring example to all South Africans. The conference aims to explore and to honour his work.
The conference will take place at the UCT Law Faculty. The organisers have invited a group of distinguished local and international academics to present papers addressing a variety of themes in Justice Langa’s judgments. We invite further proposals for papers of this nature. A limited number of papers will be selected on the basis of engagement with the conference theme and fit with other papers being presented at the conference, as well as quality and originality.
The deadline for submitting proposals is 31 August 2013. Proposals should be emailed to Dr Alistair Price at alistair.price@uct.ac.za. The proposal should include the following information:
• a working title;
• an abstract of no more than 500 words; and
• author name, institutional affiliation, and contact details.
The organisers shall endeavour to inform applicants of the outcome of their proposals by 15 September 2013.
Successful applicants will be expected to produce a draft paper, at least 5-10 pages in length, by 16 December 2013 that will be distributed to all participants before the conference. Presentation of accepted papers at the conference should be approximately 20-30 minutes in length, although a detailed schedule will be distributed in due course. Presented papers will be considered for publication, subject to peer review, in the 2015 edition of Acta Juridica.
Registration for non-presenter participation in the conference will be opened during September 2013. Further details will be published in due course by email and on the conference website: www.langaconference.uct.ac.za (to be launched soon).
Best wishes,
Dr Alistair Price, UCT (alistair.price@uct.ac.za)
Adv Michael Bishop, UCT (mjbishop@outlook.com)
