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Raise the Flags of Peace
Full text linkOh mighty ones, with wealth untold,Do not let hearts grow harsh and cold.A throne means naught if pain prevails,And voices rise in tearful tales..
Confidentiality v Justice: The effect of the No Tipping Off rule
Full text linkThe “no tipping off” (NTO) rule prevents legal practitioners from disclosing to their clients that they have filed a suspicious transaction report (STR) with the Financial Information Centre. In terms of professional conduct, this creates a dilemma between, on the one hand, fulfilling the duty to report possible money laundering and other suspicious activity and, on the other, the duty to maintain trust with the client and act in good faith. This dilemma means attorneys face possible consequences from both sides of the situation by choosing one over the other. Full transparency between legal practitioners and clients is paramount. This article examines this underexplored question and provides recommendations for potential solutions
Of legal pluralism and secular constitutional centralism: Assessing the development and interpretation of living law through the lens of the Constitution
Full text linkSouth Africa is a multicultural society with various socio-legal systems, making it a country based on legal pluralism. Such systems take the form of customary law and cultural-religious practices. “Customary law” refers to customs and usages particular to the indigenous communities of South Africa, while “cultural-religious practices” refers to the rest of these socio-legal systems, for example Islamic law. This article examines the development of living law in the form of customary law and cultural-religious practices in South Africa through the lens of the Constitution. Although the two, customary law and cultural-religious practices, are distinct from each other, they regulate the lives of people socio-culturally. The article argues that the Constitution has become the central institution through which customary law and cultural-religious practices are interpreted, developed, and applied. In the case of customary law, the test is whether its different rules are constitutionally valid, failing which the courts will either develop it or strike it down. Where a cultural-religious practice has not been accommodated, an inquiry is conducted as to why this is so. This involves applying the test for discrimination to determine whether there are justifiable grounds for not accommodating the cultural-religious practice within the law. This article considers various instances where the development and interpretation of customary law and cultural-religious practices has been heavily dependent on the Constitution within the courts. It describes this phenomenon of subjecting of customary law and cultural-religious practices to the Constitution as “secular constitutional centralism”. The latter is an inclusionary method that seeks to incorporate various socio-legal, cultural, or religious systems under the ambit of the Constitution. In this instance the Constitution plays a central role in regulating people’s sociocultural identities. Thus, what appears to be a society based on legal pluralism is one in which its various socio-legal systems are centralised around the Constitution
Africa Diary: News from the continent 1 June – 31 August 2025
Full text linkA selection of events about, and from across, the continent that are significant or interesting, or both. Compiled by the New Agenda Editorial Collective at the Institute for African Alternatives, we welcome contributions for ideas on what to include
Karoo crossroads: The green frontier and the enduring fault line
Full text linkStellenbosch University’s DSTI/NRF SARChI Research Programme on the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development exposes a fundamental contradiction in the resource-rich Karoo; global scientific, environmental, and financial development initiatives collide with local realities of inequality, dispossession, and ecological fragility. In this editorial, STEPHANIE PAULA BORCHARDT asks if the impoverished communities who live there have reason to celebrate?
This special issue of New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy emerges from the work of the DSTI/NRF SARChIResearch Chair1 in the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development at Stellenbosch University, and reflects the Chair’s central focus: to interrogate the meanings and practices of sustainable development in the Karoo, a region marked by environmental vulnerability, historical marginalisation, and speculative futures. The research looks beyond policy to examine how development is experienced, imagined, and contested on the ground. Drawing on sociological and anthropological approaches, the Chair seeks to build theory that is locally grounded, attentive to power and place, and responsive to the complexities of rural transformation
Reflecting on the impacts on undergraduate economic and management science students of a Freirean-inspired module in sustainability education
Full text linkI reflect on impacts of a Freirean-inspired module designed to conscientise and implicate economic and management science students in socio-economic and environmental challenges. A conceptual framework proposed by Hopwood, et al. (2005) was used to compare student positions in relation to these challenges based on their pre- and post-module opinions. In terms of socio-economic concerns, the results indicated a reformist central tendency, with an aversion for anything radically transformative. Participating in the module had no significant effect on this. In terms of environmental concerns, students separated into two groups: those who clustered around wanting to maintain the status quo, and a noticeable minority who expressed transformative views. Participating in the module shifted student opinions towards greater environmental concern. Based on this, I reflect critically on humility, the paradox of respecting student subjectivity vs activism, Freirean ‘unfinishedness’, and the importance of small victories.
Language inclusion and neo-colonialism: The impacts of ethnolinguistic admission criteria at South African universities
Full text linkLanguages in South Africa have always been employed as stimuli to negotiate boundaries of unity and segregation among South Africans. Likewise, universities established before, during, and post-apartheid times were instituted either as key instruments to contrive separation among South Africans or as symbols to mend the segregation walls. This article set out to examine language distribution at South African universities, the language admission criteria and their impacts in promoting language inclusion and social cohesion in Departments of African Languages in the post-apartheid era. IsiNguni language modules were used to contextualise the study. A qualitative research approach was employed to carry out the research, using the interview schedule as an instrument to collect data. The Ethnolinguistic Vitality Theory was used to underpin the study. The findings revealed that African languages were predominantly distributed based on their official status in the South African provinces, while Afrikaans and particularly English were promoted across the country. The grade 12 certificate was the common criterion that was employed to admit or reject potential students’ applications to Departments of African Languages based on the home languages studied in grade 12. To some extent, the distribution of South African languages and the language admission approach to Departments of African languages were found to maintain the dominance of certain languages and ethnolinguistic segregation in the country. The article advocates for the promotion of African languages at a national rather than provincial level in order to uproot the ethnolinguistic traces of the apartheid government at South African universities
Think Piece: Trust as a foundation for ethics and integrity in educational contexts
Full text linkTrust has been a central theme in academic integrity discourse for decades. In this piece, I think about trust from a variety of perspectives: student conduct, faculty conduct, and organizational trust. I then discuss the role of trust in addressing misconduct. These framings are drawn from a model of Comprehensive Academic Integrity (CAI), in which academic integrity includes and extends beyond student conduct