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JIFA will be hosting its first Judicial leaders retreat 24-28 July in Cape Town. It will be attended by 7 Chief Justices from SADC as well as 11 other senior judges. The faculty includes retired Justices Linda Dobbs ( DBE) ; Dikgang Moseneke; Kate O’Regan; the Chief Justice of Malawi and Supreme Court of Appeal of New York Judge Karen Peters. The Programme can be seen here.
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By Carmel Rickard
Cape Town — Twenty African High Court judges have had a taste of South Africa's complex political reality: their human rights training course was hurriedly moved after student protests closed the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus.
The judges, in South Africa to examine how to apply international human rights law in appropriate decisions, came from 10 different African countries for the event, presented by the UCT-based Judicial Institute for Africa (Jifa).
Though they should have met for their discussions in the law faculty's Kramer building, organisers moved the workshop off campus for the first few days due to the continuing protests that saw the campus, like others in South Africa, closed for classes.
In the course of the workshop, the judges were thrown even further into the South African situation by the hypothetical cases they were asked to consider, several of which related directly to dramatic events unfolding in the host country.
Thirty two judges from 12 African countries participated in the very first Core skills for judges course
Judge Dinnah Usiku from the Windhoek High Court in Namibia found the module on judgment writing and the interaction with her African peers particularly helpful. “This course should be held as often as possible to assist judicial officers who are newly appointed,” added Usiku, whose appointment to the bench was made eight months ago