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IS LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE OR COMMUTATION AN EFFECTIVE ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURE FOR CHINA?
Get PDFNew legislation adopting a tough criminal stance on the crimes of corruption and bribery responds to the need for strengthening Chinese anti-corruption work. The ninth amendment to the Chinese Criminal Law Code, which adds life imprisonment without parole or commutation, has received broad support from all sectors of society. The aim of the amendment, as stated by the legislature, is to safeguard judicial fairness and prevent criminals convicted of the most serious corruption offences from having their prison sentences shortened through commutation. This stated legislative aim is not acceptable. Whether from the perspective of deterrence or alternative measures to the death penalty, the approach of adding life imprisonment without parole or commutation in order to punish the corrupt is not ideal. This article argues that, given the particular nature of crimes of corruption and given the disadvantages of life imprisonment without parole or commutation, restraint in the use of the death penalty does not mean that life imprisonment has to be used as an alternative measure. Moreover, the death penalty with a two-year reprieve is sufficient for realising retribution and prevention as aims of punishment
ILLICIT BUSINESS FORUMS IN SOUTH AFRICA: A SURVEY
Get PDFExtortion is understood as one party taking from another a patrimonial or non-patrimonial advantage by intentionally and unlawfully subjecting them to pressure which forces them to submit to a bribe. Extortion is not an unfamiliar concept in South Africa. In this article it is contended that extortion has become a major concern in the construction industry. Sites where the installation of critical infrastructure occur and construction sites throughout South Africa are being invaded by what some may call the ‘construction mafia’.1 The South African Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors reports that in 2019 alone over 180 infrastructure and construction projects were affected by acts such as extortion perpetrated by groups who call themselves ‘local business forums’. The business forums often mislead construction companies by demanding 30% of the value of the contract awarded to such companies. They refer to the stipulations in the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act 5 of 2000 (PPPFA) and subsequent Preferential Procurement Regulation, 2017 (PPR) to create the perception that they have a rightful claim to 30 percent of the contract value. If their demands are not met the business forums resort to violence which halts construction site activities. The business forums justify their actions as ‘radical transformation’. This view is supported by some local politicians who actively encourage the activities by the forums or are involved for financial or political gain
Rwanda
No full textBackground: "Classic justice has failed in Rwanda," says Gratien Uwisabye, a Tutsi cultural activist who works for Fest\u27Africa. "We need to explore other forms of justice. There can be no reconciliation between the Hutu and the Tutsi without justice." Fest\u27 Africa is an annual literary festival in Lille, France, run by African writers. Fifty African authors, mostly from Francophone countries, participated in last year\u27s festival. The focus was on Rwanda, particularly on how the memory of the genocide can be preserved through literature and on what role the literary arts can play in bringing about reconciliation
By the Rivers of Babylon: The Bondage Motif in the Performing Arts, Life and Aesthetics of Rastafarians
Get PDFBackground; Rastafarians (popularly called Rastas) are members of a black Caribbean cult, professing black supremacy and fighting for human rights and justice. Today, there are Rastas in many different parts of the world. Rastafarianism itself adopts the cultural aesthetics and revolutionary dimension of Pan-African ism. The name is based on the name of Ras Tafari, a great-grandson of King Saheka Selassie of Shoa, and the cult derives many of its characteristics from Ethiopianism. Ras Tafari was crowned Negus of Ethiopia in 1930 at a coronation attended by leaders and dignitaries from all over the world
Towards a Civil Society Conception of African Unity/Integration
No full textBackground: The term civil society enjoys a degree of conceptual elasticity, which is both helpful and unhelpful. Because the term refers to a wide range of social phenomena, which vary in constitution and societal expression, looseness is in this respect advantageous since it permits the accommodation of variation. On the ocher hand, it\u27s shifting conceptual borders makes the notion sometimes inchoate and terminologically indeterminate. Some may say that it is neither fish nor fowl. Another way of fathoming this problem is to realize that defmitions of "civil society" are seriously manifold and the conceptual divergences are ultimately based on contrastive philosophical positions, which cannor be easily unified
The Manifestation of Nigerian: National Identity through Music
Get PDFBackground: National identity could be defined as unique characteristics by which a person is recognized, as well as being in relationship with the cultural ideals of his/her nation. Such cultural ideals from the basis for people\u27s sense of belonging. The state of being the same in nature and of holding similar beliefs binds people of the same country or state together. Although people of the same nation could be of diverse ethnic groups, certain factors, such as their beliefs and their religious and socio-economic practices, are strong binding forces. Nketia stated that Africa as a continent is not as culturally homogeneous as has generally been assume
Editrorial
No full textWe are delighted to be bringing out this first edition of Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning. The planning for the journal began some four years back at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town, as part of the renewal of emphasis on the scholarship of teaching and learning at the institution. An editorial committee was formed by academics mainly from UWC and the other three higher education institutions in Cape Town, - Brenda Leibowitz and Cecilia Jacobs (Stellenbosch University), Chris Winberg and James Garraway (Cape Peninsula University of Technology), Dick Ng’ambi, Moragh Paxton and Cheryl Hodgkinson - Williams (University of Cape Town), Sherran Clarence and Vivienne Bozalek (University of the Western Cape), as well as Melanie Walker (University of the Free State), Denise Wood (University of South Australia) and Masebala Tjabane (Higher Education Learning and Teaching Association of Southern Africa (HELTASA) to which the journal is affiliated). This committee deliberated for some time on the exact focus and form of the journal
Taking a Longer View: Processes of Curriculum Development in the Department of Graphic Design at the University of Johannesburg
Get PDFn the face of the complex array of competing pressures currently faced by higher education, globally, nationally and institutionally (Maistry 2010; Clegg 2005) academic staff who are required to reconceptualise their curricula are often tempted to focus on the immediate demands of the classroom and to pay scant attention to the broader knowledge and curriculum-related issues which inform pedagogical practice. In this paper we argue that opportunities should be created for staff to step back from pedagogical concerns and to consider knowledge domains and the curriculum in all its dimensions from a distance and in a more nuanced, theoretically informed way (Clarence-Fincham and Naidoo 2014; Luckett 2012; Quinn 2012).
The paper aims to show how a model for curriculum development which mirrors the three tiers of Bernstein\u27s pedagogical device was used in a Department of Graphic Design as a means of facilitating a deeper, more explicit understanding of the nature of the discipline and the values underpinning it, the kind of curriculum emerging from it and the student identities associated with it. (Berstein 1999, 2000; Clarence-Fincham and Naidoo 2014; Maton 2007). It begins by identifying some of the central challenges currently facing the South African Higher Education sector and then sketches the institutional context and highlights the key concepts underpinning the university\u27s learning-to-be philosophy. Within this framework, using staff responses during early curriculum development workshops, as well as ideas expressed during a later group discussion, it identifies a range of staff positions about several aspects of the curriculum which reveals both areas of agreement as well as contestation and which provides a solid platform for further interrogation and development
Researching students’ epistemic access under Covid-19: Epistemological and methodological challenges
Get PDFThis paper aims at critically examining the main epistemological and methodological trends in the scholarship of ‘student access’ and ‘success’ in South African higher education. This is done with reference to key moments in the process of higher education transformation and the main arguments on the individual, social and institutional factors that impact student achievement. The paper considers three intersecting domains: the knowledge foundational domain, the social domain, and the research discursive domain. It explores how these domains interface with the individual agency of the researcher and the participant with reference to the imagery and imaginary constructed around difference. The paper shows how the analytical discourses of access have largely reflected global theoretical influences which do not always speak to the local context. Thus, the paper calls for de-colonial approaches rooted in epistemic justice that account for the contextual peculiarities of student agency and experience