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HUMAN RIGHTS MONTH: I have the right to …

20 March 2023 | Story Prof Danie Brand | Photo Supplied

Opinion article by Prof Danie Brand, Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State.

Opinion article by Prof Danie Brand, Director of the Free State Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State

What does it mean to say one has a right to something, such as access to housing or to protest or to property? What are human rights? What do they ‘do’?

One often hears of human rights being asserted as if they give one an absolute claim to something specific and discrete, which can be enforced against anything and everyone else, irrespective of the impact on the interests (and rights) of others, as well as broader public goals or values.

Perhaps the clearest example of this was the way in which the right to ownership of land was understood under apartheid property law. Ownership then was an absolutely exclusive right: it entitled its holders to exclude everyone else without a countervailing right from their land, irrespective of circumstance or context. All a landowner had to prove before a court to obtain an eviction order if they sought to evict someone from their land, was that they had the right (owned the land) and that those they sought to evict had no countervailing right in law to be on the land. If the right was proved in this way, the remedy of exclusion through eviction followed automatically – the court had to grant the eviction order.

Constitutional right to peaceful protest

A more recent example of this view was on display in the way in which members of parliament complained about their removal from the house when they attempted to shut down the President’s State of the Nation Address through protest action. Many responded by saying their removal was unjustified because, by trying to stop the address from proceeding, they were exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest. The assumption underlying this response is that the right to protest peacefully and unarmed entitles you to protest peacefully and unarmed in any way you see fit and regardless of the consequences for other people and for society at large.

With this view of rights, a right bestows on its holders a sphere of absolute inviolability – an abstract space within which they can do what the right entitles them to do (protest, hold property, speak, associate or whatever), subject to nothing and no-one else, with no limitations. Rights are seen as instruments through which to separate ourselves from other people and unilaterally impose our will and our interests on others. Rights operate as trumps, boundaries, conversation stoppers.

Understanding human rights

Fortunately, our constitution embodies a different vision or understanding of human rights. In various ways, our constitution makes it clear that what exactly our human rights entitle us to do, or have, or experience, is never abstractly fixed, immutable, or absolute, but must always be determined anew within context. Whenever we seek to exercise one of our human rights, its precise contours and limits must be determined in light of the circumstances prevailing at the time we seek to exercise it; the history of our country; the impact that our exercise thereof will have on the rights and interests of other people; and how our conduct in terms of the right aligns with the public interest and broader constitutional goals.

In this view of rights, our understanding of the right of ownership (which is of course not one of the human rights proclaimed in our constitution but is only indirectly protected in Section 25 of the Constitution) has been moulded into something entirely different from the apartheid conception. Landowners no longer have absolute, exclusive control over their land that simply arises from the fact that they have the right to ownership. If landowners today want to remove people occupying their land without any legal right to do so – in addition to and after proving their ownership – they must persuade a court that eviction would be just and equitable in light of all relevant circumstances (prevailing circumstances; interests of others, including the occupiers of their land; the public interest; constitutional goals) before they will succeed.

WATCH: The Power of Human Rights

Building democracy

Likewise, if we seek to exercise our right to protest – in order to know what we would be entitled to do in terms of that right – we must consider how our protest will affect the rights and interests of others and whether that impact can be justified, and how the manner and form of our protest squares with constitutional goals such as building democracy. Equally, of course, if others object to our protest because of its impact on their rights and interest, they will have to contextualise their attempt to exercise their right to education, or academic freedom, or freedom of movement in light of our interests, the prevailing circumstances, the public interest, and constitutional goals such as fostering democracy, freedom of association, and freedom of speech.

That is, instead of rights in our constitutional order being abstract spheres of inviolability that can be exercised against others to protect or enforce our interests without consideration of context, keeping us apart, they are mechanisms to enable us to live together, to find accommodation between our disparate, perhaps conflicting, but often overlapping interests and concerns.

What is it then that our human rights do for us or entitle us to? Whenever our human rights-related interests are at stake, or if we rub up our fellow human beings with whom we cohabit the wrong way when our interests seem to clash, they entitle us to be taken equal account of. They require others (most importantly those in authority, usually the state) to include us and have concern for our interest, equal to the concern for others, in the conversation about what should happen and what we may or may not do. In this sense, rights do not keep us apart or stop conversations. Instead, they are acutely democratic mechanisms, making it possible for us to live together. ‘Only that?’, you may respond – but this is no small thing.

News Archive

Graduates convene with global leaders at the UFS 2015 Winter Graduation ceremonies

2015-07-07

Dr Hendrik Auret, dr Gerhard Bosman en dr Madelein Stoffberg.
Foto: Leonie Bolleurs

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The University of the Free State’s 2015 Winter Graduations, which took place from 1-2 July 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus offered several highlights. Three global leaders received honorary doctorates. A further 2 000 degrees and diplomas were conferred to graduates in the seven faculties of the university.

For the first time in the history of the UFS, three PhDs in Architecture were awarded simultaneously. Hendrik Auret, Gerhard Bosman, and Madelein Stoffberg’s outstanding achievements are a milestone in the university’s pursuit of academic excellence.

Furthermore, three PhDs were conferred on graduates from the Department of Consumer Science in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. Ismari van der Merwe, Natasha Cronje, and Gloria Seiphetlheng set a precedent when they walked across the Callie Human stage to collect their doctorates at the same graduation ceremony.

This year, the university produced 66 Doctors of Philosophy in various fields of study. Six of these PhDs were awarded in the Department of Physics. Three graduates in the Department of Soil- and Crop- and Climate Sciences received PhDs at the Winter Graduation. They are Tesha Mardamootoo, Elmarie Kotzé, and David Chemei.

Dr John Samuel.
Photo: Johan Roux

Keynote speakers provide enlightenment to graduates

On Wednesday 1 July 2015, Dr John Samuel, SA’s leading education expert, addressed 707 diploma graduates from the Centre for Financial Planning Law and the School of Open Learning. For the graduates’ future reference, Samuel offered invaluable knowledge he had accumulated over the years as Chief Executive of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. “One of the lessons I have learnt was not only the importance of time, but it was in fact what being on time demonstrated,” he said. “Being on time was demonstrating respect, respect for the people you are meeting, and for the occasion.”

On the second day of graduation, Nataniël, South African singer, songwriter, and entertainer spoke to Master’s and doctoral graduates in the Faculties of Economic and Management Sciences, Humanities, Education, Health Sciences, Law, Theology, and Natural and Agricultural Sciences. His keynote spoke to the graduates’ sense of resolve in saying, “nothing is ever accidental. It is always with a purpose, it is your turn to make the world a better place.” He added that “it is important to strive for excellence and to be proud of what you are doing.”

Honorary doctorate recipients in a nutshell

Dr Samuel is one of the three exceptional global leaders to receive honorary doctorates from the university on 1 July 2015. His accolade was presented by the Faculty of Education. He has contributed to the Public Participation Education Network (PPEN) campaign as a founding member. He established the Centre for Education Policy Development, the Joint Working Group (for The National Party Government and the ANC), the National Education Conference, and the National Education and Training Forum. In addition, he made leadership contributions to the First Education and Training White Paper, the first Green Paper on Higher Education, and is the CEO of the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. The WK Kellogg Foundation in the USA operates under his directorship.

Professor Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies at the UFS and Dr Lakhdar Brahimi.
Photo: Mike Rose from Mike Rose Photography

Dr Lakhdar Brahimi received an honorary doctorate from the Centre for Africa Studies. Algerian-born Brahimi was first involved with the United Nations (UN) in 1992, and has since been deployed all over the world on peacekeeping missions. Amongst many other countries, he has worked as a mediator for South Africa, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Burundi, Angola, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, and Côte d’Ivoire on behalf of the UN. He also played a direct role in South Africa’s democratic transition as a special representative in 1993/4.

Dr Mercy Amba Oduyoye received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Theology. Dr Oduyoye is widely regarded as one of the most influential women theologians in Africa. She was the first black woman to receive a degree in Theology in 1965 from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. She continues to shift the paradigm of gender in theology internationally as the director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at the Trinity Theology Seminary in Ghana.

Dr Mercy Oduyoye.
Photo: Johan Roux

In closing the academic celebrations

Vice Rector: Academic, Dr Lis Lange, commended the class of 2014 for making their contribution to the educational system. Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice Chancellor and Rector, also congratulated the graduates in closing.

“This is a day many have worked very hard towards, it is an enormous achievement as well as a development in the quality of research, and the courage to research,” he said in a vote of confidence.

Dr Khotso Mokhele, Chancellor of the UFS, applauded the university in light of the increased number of female graduates who completed their degrees with distinctions. The transcendence of demographics, both in terms of gender and race, on a postgraduate level, increases the hope of achieving gender equality in both the academic arena and South Africa.

More graduation news

A number of distinctions were also awarded during the two-day ceremony. For a list of these distinctions, follow this link.

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