LATEST NEWS AND EVENTS5TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT
Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State | 1-3 November 2022
THEME: REALISING THE RIGHT TO DEVELOPMENT: Between Coups d’État and the Syndrome of Life Presidency in Africa
Call for Abstracts ... read more. LAUNCH OF PANEL OF INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL EXPERTS' REPORT ON ALLEGED VIOLATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW COMMITTED AGAINST MUSLIMS IN INDIA
Alarmed by reports of increasing attacks against Muslims in India, three eminent human rights experts formed the Panel of Independent International Experts to examine alleged violations of international law and India’s obligations towards victims. On 24 June 2022, the Free State Centre for Human Rights hosted the launch of the final report. The full report can be read here - Report Final. TSHEPANG MAHALTSI CHOSEN AS TOP 50 INSPIRATIONAL YOUTH IN THE FREE STATE Mr Tshepang Mahlatsi, student assistant at the Free State Centre for Human Rights was chosen as part of the Free State Premier’s Top 50 Most Inspirational Youth programme. The Programme recognises young Free Staters who are working hard anywhere in the world, lifting the flag of the Free State while at the same time inspiring other young people to strive for the best. He was honoured for the work he has been doing through his NGO, Next Chapter, which strives for mental health advocacy and awareness in university spaces and the general community.
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ABOUT
The Free State Centre for Human Rights is a critical, interdisciplinary, and contextually engaged research, advocacy, and legal-practice institution, focusing in its work on the relationship between human rights and transformation.
Established in January 2016, the Centre’s genesis was the 2007 incident of racial discrimination at the Reitz student residence on the UFS Bloemfontein Campus. Following this incident an agreement was reached between the UFS and the South African Human Rights Commission that a centre for human rights would be established, with the mandate to work toward the transformation of the UFS campus and campus community.
Given this background, the Centre’s broad focus is not on human rights in the abstract, but on the relationship between human rights and our actual mandate, transformation.
This relationship is approached from a critical perspective, that is, one that recognises its double-handed nature; the fact that human rights, in whatever context, relate both positively and negatively to transformation, can both enable and hinder transformation.
This inevitably means that the Centre’s work and its research community is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on a range of different disciplines and combining insights and wisdom from a variety of disciplines. The Centre participates in its research and other activities with the whole UFS community, be it through teaching in the Centre’s Interdisciplinary Master’s Degree in Human Rights; co-supervision of postgraduate students; participation in research projects; or simply involvement in the Centre’s research discussions and events.
Although the Centre is primarily an academic research institution, its work is contextually engaged. Apart from its Research and Postgraduate Division, coordinated by Dr Gerard Kamdem Kamga, the Centre consists of an Advocacy Division, coordinated by Dr Annelie de Man, and a Legal Services Division, coordinated by Dr Rita Ozoemena. The Advocacy Division engages in transformation-related human rights advocacy on the UFS campus, working primarily with students in the university’s student residences. The Legal Services Division operates as a Free State-focused public interest strategic litigation unit, partly in cooperation with the UFS Law Clinic.
All of the Centre’s work is geographically located: research, advocacy, and litigation focus on issues on the UFS campus and in Bloemfontein, the Free State Province, and Lesotho.
The Centre is headed by Prof Danie Brand (BrandJD@ufs.ac.za).
PEOPLE
| Core staff | Extraordinary professors | Research fellows | Postdoctoral fellows | Advisory Board |
| Director Prof Danie Brand | Judge Dennis Davis | Prof Natalia Angel Cabo | Dr Bright Nkrumah | Prof John C Mubangizi (Chairperson) (Dean, Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, ex officio) |
| Administrator Ms Mawanda Mokoena | Prof Serges Alain Djoyou Kamga | Dr Georgia du Plessis | Dr Claire Westman | Judge Cagney Musi (Judge President, Free State High Court, ex officio) |
| Division coordinator (Advocacy) Dr Annelie de Man | Prof Karl Klare | Prof Beatri Kruger | Dr George Fordam Wara | Prof Corli Witthuhn (Vice-Rector: Research, University of the Free State, ex officio) |
| Division coordinator (Postgraduate programmes and research) Dr Gerard Kamdem Kamga | Prof Gracienne Laauwers | Dr Marelize Marais | | Ms Nicole Morris (Acting Dean of Student Affairs, ex officio) |
| Division coordinator (Legal Services) Dr Rita Ozoemena | Prof Mwiza Nkhata | Prof Chuks Okpaluba | | Mr Thabang Kheswa (South African Human Rights Commission, ex officio) |
| Research assistant Ms Natasha Kabaso | Prof Lucy Williams | Prof Dr Joachim Wolf | | Mr JC van der Merwe (Deputy Director, Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice, University of the Free State) |
| Research assistant Ms Chane Henney | Prof Loot Pretorius | Dr Loammi Wolf | | Prof Frans Viljoen (Director, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria) |
| Student assistant Mr Tshepang Mahlatsi | Prof Toyin Falola | Dr Olivia Lwabukuna | | Prof Helene Strauss (Professor, Department of English, University of the Free State) |
Student assistant
Ms Bokang Fako | Prof Sandra Liebenberg | Dr Marcel van der Watt | | Prof Tshepo Madlingozi (Director, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, University of the Witwatersrand) |
| Full-time doctoral student Ms Nosipho Goba | Judge Dhaya Pillay | Dr Carol Ngang | | Ms Louise du Plessis (Head, Land and Housing Programme, Lawyers for Human Rights) |
| Full-time doctoral student Ms Thabang Ramakhula | | Mr JC van der Merwe | | Adv Anna-Marie de Vos (SC) |
| Full-time doctoral student Mr Lindani Mhlanga | | | | Vacant (Judge, Supreme Court of Appeal,ex officio) |
RESEARCH
In terms of Research, the Free State Centre for Human Rights focuses on the relationship between human rights and transformation, from a critical, inter-disciplinary and contextually engaged framework. Our research is organised around three more specific research focus areas namely, Human Rights and Impoverishment, Human Rights and Democracy and Human Rights and Identities. Our purpose is to deepen critical and interdisciplinary study of human rights and further critical human rights praxes by conducting research and generating publications, generating local, regional and international research initiatives and establishing and developing an interdisciplinary research community. Read more...
The Division is coordinated by Dr Gerard Kamdem Kamga (KamdemKamgaGE@ufs.ac.za).
POSTGRADUATE TEACHING
Interdisciplinary Master of Human Rights
The Free State Centre for Human Rights offers a coursework, the Interdisciplinary Masters of Human Rights. The programme is designed to accommodate students and professionals from various academic disciplines. With its mode of delivery online with no residency requirement, the programme can be completed part-time. Students must attend two on-campus tuition sessions, which consist of two block sessions of one week each in year one, at the beginning of each semester. In addition, self-study, with the aid of study guides and prescribed reading materials.
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Master's Degree by Dissertation
The Free State Centre for Human Rights offers the Master’s Degree by Full Dissertation. The curriculum consists of a dissertation of between 40 000 – 50 000 words dedicated to a topic approved by the Faculty Board. The programme is designed in a way that provides students with the relevant skills to work independently as well as under supervision. There is no residency requirement but the completion of the Research Proposal in addition to the attendance to the prescribed module in Legal Research Methodology is required.
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LLD/PhD Programme
The Free State Centre offers a doctoral programme in Human Rights including LLD (Doctor of Laws) and PhD (Doctor of Philosophy). The former is dedicated to candidates with a law background while the latter is for those with background other than law. The LLD or PhD according to the case is presented in the form of the submission of a doctoral thesis. A candidate must be registered for a minimum of two years and within the first twelve months after registration, attend the sessions in Research Legal Methodology.
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The Division is coordinated by Dr Gerard Kamdem Kamga (KamdemKamgaGE@ufs.ac.za).
ADVOCACY
The Advocacy Division promotes transformation through human rights education and advocacy on the UFS campuses and more broadly in the Free State Province, Lesotho, and South Africa as whole. This achieved through three projects: a) ‘Student advocacy’, specifically via the Human Rights Ambassadors Programme; b) ‘On-campus human right monitoring’; and c) ‘Policy and legislative advocacy’.
The Division is coordinated by Dr Annelie De Man (DeManA@ufs.ac.za).
LEGAL SERVICES
The Legal Services Division of the FSCHR is a human rights strategic litigation unit that litigates on behalf of clients on brief or as amicus curiae seeking the protection of human rights, social justice and transformation. The Division focuses on matters relating to evictions, socio-economic and service delivery issues, accountability in municipal and provincial governance and corruption that arise in the Free State Province. The Division operates in collaboration with the UFS Law Clinic and the South African Human Rights Commission, Free State Province.
The Division is coordinated by Dr Rita Ozoemena (OzoemenaRN@ufs.ac.za).