DEAN’S REPORT
Professor Pamela Schwikkard
Our research is internationally recognised for excellence and is of great relevance to the national and international needs of our country.
The Faculty of Law’s three departments – Commercial Law, Public Law and Private Law – are responsible for course offerings and research, and each hosts one or more specialised academic and research units. Our research is internationally recognised for excellence and is of great relevance to the national and international needs of our country.
The faculty now has a total of 21 researchers holding National Research Foundation (NRF) ratings and no doubt we will see many more in the years to follow.
A new benchmark on the research front was set in 2013. In addition to growing our journal outputs, members of the faculty authored or co-authored a number of books or chapters in books, and new editions of three seminal titles were released.
With guest visits, seminars, workshops, conferences and special lectures held at and by the faculty, we have engaged with the wider community to share research and ideas. We have been privileged to interact with key international and African scholars during the year, which the faculty benefited from in teaching, research and the opportunity to obtain concepts for future research endeavours. The Democratic Governance and Rights Research Unit hosted Judge Thomas Masuku from Swaziland, who spent six weeks in the faculty conducting research.
The Centre for Comparative Law in Africa held its first “Comparative Law Methodology Workshop” in late 2012. Forty participants of the workshop were drawn in from various African law faculties as well as from further afield (Europe and the United States).
The centre, which was established in 2011, promotes the study of comparative law and draws on the strengths of comparative methodology to research the multifaceted field of law in Africa. The Centre for Law and the Society of the Department of Public Law co-hosted, together with two major centres of research on land and the environment in South Africa and the region, a conference on “The Land Divided: Land and South African society in 2013, in comparative perspective”.
We have been privileged to interact with key international and African scholars during the year.
In December 2013, delegates from national and international governmental entities, the private sector, civil society and academia gathered for five days of inter-connected events in Cape Town. The combined “Third Global Congress on Intellectual Property (IP) and the Public Interest and the Open AIR Conference” was hosted by our IP Unit, which brought together leading experts on IP from around the world to discuss various issues under the theme “Refining the Positive Agenda: Global Questions, Local Answers?” (see more).
The faculty also hosted a tribute in the form of an Acta Juridica Conference, honouring former Chief Justice Pius Langa in January 2014.
Professor Evance Kalula, former director of the Institute of Development and Labour Law (IDLL), marked his departure from law with a talk titled “The Will to Live and Serve: Reflections on continuity and change in the Faculty of Law, 1992 to 2012”. The current IDLL director and past head of commercial law, Professor Rochelle le Roux, presented her inaugural lecture, titled “Employment: A dodo, or simply living dangerously?”
Various members of staff received special recognition for their teaching and research. The American Society of Criminology awarded Professor Clifford Shearing the Thorsten Sellin & Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck Award in recognition of his outstanding scholarship in criminology. Associate Professor Rashida Manjoo received the inaugural William McKinley Award for Good Governance from Albany Law School in recognition of her contribution to the protection of women’s rights.
members of the Faculty remain committed
to excellence in research.
At the joint graduation ceremony for the faculties of health sciences and law held on 16 December 2013, constitutional law expert Professor Pierre De Vos, deputy dean of the Faculty of Law and Claude Leon Foundation Chair in Constitutional Governance, received the university’s Social Responsiveness Award for 2013.
Lastly, Associate Professor Anne Pope, former chair of our Faculty Research Ethics Committee, has been appointed by the national Minister of Health, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, as a member of the National Health Research Ethics Council.
The director of research and other members of the faculty remain committed to excellence in research.