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28 November 2018 | Story Charlene Stanley
Law home read more
Back row, from the left: Prof Danie Brand (Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights), workshop co-organiser Helen Carr (Kent University), and Ellen Maphalane (home owner) with workshop participants during a visit to Ms Maphalane’s home, an example of alternatively constructed housing in Bloemfontein.

The body of a sixty-year-old homeless man is discovered in a tent on the outskirts of Canterbury, Kent, UK. Cursory research reveals that he had been refused a place on the council’s housing register and that he was a former member of the British armed forces – a group that makes up close to a quarter of the ‘rough sleepers’ in London. This raises questions about the complex relationship of politics, campaigning, gender, and welfare in homelessness law, policy, and practice.

Jump across the Atlantic Ocean to Klapmuts, Western Cape, South Africa, where beneficiaries of an RDP housing project are benefiting from the shelter provided in the form of private home ownership. Yet, they are not using these assets to its full potential, e.g. as security for credit to start or expand a business. This raises questions about whether the less expensive route of providing public housing with tenure security would not be a better option.

International workshop on housing

Diverse issues such as these came up for discussion as planners, geographers, architects, art historians, social activists, and lawyers recently met during a workshop at the University of the Free State to discuss what a home constitutes, and how best to provide and protect homes in a sustainable and inclusive manner in 21st century cities. The workshop was hosted by the Free State Centre for Human Rights on the Bloemfontein Campus.

Participants presented papers and engaged in discussions on home-related topics as diverse as Hannah Arendt’s conception of the intimate and political spheres; Henri Lefebvre’s notion of a right to the city; alternative, environmentally conscious building methods; court cases dealing with the concept of home; the right to a domestic garden as a component of the right to a home; and constructing the home as a subversive and empowering alternative when it comes to giving birth.

Going forward

The same group of participants will meet for a follow-up workshop at Kent University in the UK in February 2019, and a third workshop in Belo Horizonte in Brazil in June 2019, with the project culminating in the publication of an inter-disciplinary book containing the papers workshopped at the three events.

News Archive

Faculty of Law congratulated on 100 years of Iurisprudentia
2009-11-05

Prof. Johan Henning, Dean of the Faculty of Law at the UFS and Prof. Barry Rider from the Jesus College at the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Photo: Stephen Collett
This year the Faculty of Law at the University of the Free State (UFS) is celebrating a century of excellence in legal education under the theme “Iurisprudentia 100”. A number of prominent leaders in the international legal arena congratulated the faculty on this milestone achievement.

Prof. Harry Rajak, Emeritus Professor from the Sussex Law School at the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom communicated his heartiest congratulations to the faculty. “It has been my great privilege and pleasure to have had, for many years now, a close association with the Faculty of Law of the UFS. I have enjoyed several visits to the Law Faculty, during which I have benefited enormously from the vibrant intellectual, scholarly and extremely friendly atmosphere which you have all created, as well as from the enthusiasm and intelligence of your students. I look forward to the continuation for many more years of this important and fruitful connection,” he said.

Prof. Barry Rider from the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the Jesus College at Cambridge University in the UK also congratulated and expressed his admiration towards the faculty. “The reputation for excellence in the teaching of law and in its scholarly research that your faculty has attained both in the Republic and internationally is a testament to the outstanding efforts and commitment of so many generations of scholars in Bloemfontein. I have been extraordinarily privileged to be associated with your faculty. The achievements of your faculty are truly impressive,” he said.

The faculty also received wishes of congratulations from Prof. Thomas Hurst, Research Scholar and Professor of Law from the Levin College of Law at the University of Florida in the United States of America. “The UFS has established itself as a world renowned leader in legal education,” he said.

Mr Anton Trichardt from Londsdale Chambers, Melbourne Australia also conveyed his best wishes to the faculty. “Your Faculty of Law has indeed been an example of excellence in legal education, training and research. The Centre for Business Law and its monograph series has been an unrivalled trend-setter in law,” he said.

Old Mutual also conveyed its wishes of congratulations.
 

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