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UFS Reflection Series webinar: The quality of our democracies under COVID-19

04 August 2020 | Story Dr Nitha Ramnath

Apart from its devastating impact on people’s lives and livelihoods, the COVID-19 pandemic has also affected the nature and quality of our democracies – democracy read in its widest sense here as collective and individual self-determination. Formal, institutional democracy has beencurtailed through the imposition of states of emergency or disaster and the logistical difficulties associated with social distancing. Extra-institutional democratic work, such as protest and social-movement activity, has suffered from prohibitions imposed by law and through state suppression related to ‘lockdown’. The nature (and perhaps democratic quality) of public conversation has changed – for better or worse – from increasing reliance on ‘science’ and ‘scientists’ to justify public choices. The crisis has brought to the fore already existing characteristics of our democracies, such as the prevalence and power of special-interest bargaining, the extreme inequality of our societies, and chauvinist nationalisms that force us to ask whether we have ever had democracy at all. What will be the long-term effects of these impacts of the crisis on our democracies? What will democracy look like post-COVID? What does the crisis teach us about what our democracies have always been?

Join us for a discussion of these and other democracy-related issues in these troubled times by a panel of four hailing from Colombia, India, South Africa, and the USA.

Date: Thursday, 13 August

Time: 14:00-16:00 (South African Standard Time – GMT +2)

Please RSVP to Mamello Serasengwe at serasengwemsm@ufs.ac.za no later than 12 August 2020 upon which you will receive a Skype for Business meeting invite and link to access the webinar

Panel

Prof Natalia Angel Cabo (University of Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia)

Dr Quaraysha Ismail-Sooliman (University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa)

Dr Usha Ramanathan Independent Law Researcher (Delhi, India)

Prof Katie Young (Boston College, Boston, USA)

Moderator

Prof Danie Brand (Free State Centre for Human Rights, University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa)

News Archive

Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to deliver prestige lecture at the UFS

2013-10-08

Minister Jeff Radebe, Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, will deliver a lecture in the Prestige Series of the Dean in the Faculty of Law at the UFS on Access to Justice.

Thursday 17 October 2013
18:00
CR Swart Auditorium, Bloemfontein Campus

Please RSVP before or on Monday 14 October 2013 to Aldi Lombard, +27(0)51 401 2319 or lombarda1@ufs.ac.za.

We kindly refer you to the short CV of Jeffrey Thamsanqa Radebe.

Radebe holds a BIuris degree from the University of Zululand obtained in 1976; LLM in International Law from Leipzig University obtained in 1981. He also studied at the Lenin International School, Moscow, in 1985.

Radebe became a student activist and joined the underground structures of the African National Congress (ANC) during the student uprisings in 1976. He was active in the organisation and was arrested and convicted under the Terrorism Act. He served his jail sentence on Robben Island. After his release in 1990, he held several leadership positions within the ANC and the South African Communist Party.

Following the democratic elections in 1994, Radebe held ministerial positions in the Departments of Public Works, Public Enterprises and Transport. In 2009 Radebe was appointed as Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, a position that he currently still holds. Among his many achievements, Radebe received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from the Chicago State University in 1996.

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