Magister Legum - LLM / The study aims to detect the outcomes for provincial and local governments when the veto power was invoked. This in turn provides evidence based information on the extent to which the intergovernmental checks and balances are working in practice. This is significant as the study measures the degree to which the veto power acts as a safeguard in protecting the autonomy and institutional integrity of local governments. While the data to be collated and presented will document the role and function currently performed by the Minister and NCOP it will also provide an opportunity to assess the legal framework.

Magister Legum - LLM / The fragmented approach of provinces in the use of legislation and policies, coupled with the uncertainty of key terms in the context of section 139(1) of the Constitution, have resulted in provincial executives not being consistent or not always complying with the use of the steps necessary for interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution. In order to assess the impact of the fragmented approach and uncertainties on how provincial executives apply the above mentioned steps, this study answers eight questions designed to test the way in which provincial executives applied the aforementioned steps and the effectiveness of the use of aforementioned interventions. The assessment is based on the tallies from the answers to the eight questions, and the grouping of these answers in accordance with the tallies. Each of the three main groups characterises how the relevant provincial executives applied the steps necessary for the use of interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution for the last five years. The fourth group assesses the effectiveness of such interventions. The answers are derived from the data relating to the notices to the Minister and NCOP, and complemented by the progress reports from the Minister and NCOP. The findings of the four groupings are as follows: the first group presented the steps which present no difficulty in terms of compliance; the second group presented the steps which provincial executives mostly complied with but which at times present some difficulty; and the third group presented those steps which are problematic. The fourth group determined that the effectiveness of the role of provinces in the use of interventions in terms of section 139(1) of the Constitution is questionable due to the repetition and duration of a number of interventions. In order to address the issue of non-compliance by provincial executives with the steps necessary for the use of interventions, the study recommends the drafting of legislation and formulation of clear policy guidelines which will ensure a consistent, coherent and uniform approach when invoking interventions.

Magister Legum - LLM / In a country in which human rights feature prominently in our discourse about who we are, as well as in the South African constitutional and legal framework, so many wrongs continue to be perpetrated on women and children. However, children seem to be particularly affected by domestic violence, either physically, emotionally or socially. In order to adequately address these diverse experiences and understand what children say, an in-depth investigation into how children experience domestic violence, and what their views are, is required. The study will focus on those children who had been affected emotionally and socially in their homes. This study will make an attempt to expand on how children experience domestic violence, what the general reaction of a selected group of children, who have observed domestic violence, is and what their views of domestic violence are. Attention was given to the relevant literature as well to legislative and policy frameworks. The study employed a qualitative research method in order to obtain in-depth data from the children. Children were selected from three schools in a small Northern Cape town, which participated in the study and the schools were grouped as follows: one school from each area, which are Nonzwakazi, Sunrise and De Aar (town). Each high school had five participants. The participants‟ ages were between 12 and 17. All the participants reside at De Aar which is situated in Prixley kaSeme District about 300 kilometres from Kimberley, Northern Cape Province. Data was coded according to the themes that emerged from the study and were analysed. The results indicated that children are able to share their experiences when given the opportunity. It is further shown in the results that children view domestic violence as a wrong and that men are the sole abusers. It further indicated that children do not have confidence in the courts; they are of the view that the courts are being too lenient on the abusers and they further said that more protection orders should be issued in order to prevent domestic violence. They blame this on non-responsiveness of the police when they are called and the kind of punishments the courts impose when the abuser is brought before court.The majority of children expressed their wish to see justice being done. The study found that children are of the view that there is little support from the police and the courts. The study concluded that children, acting voluntarily and with appropriate ethical safeguards, can make a significant contribution to both describing their experiences of domestic violence, and to indicating the standard of services and other interventions that they can trust and use.

From Introduction: It was a feature of South African political life to have senseless and continued political violence especially in areas such as KwaZulu Natal and Gauteng., There were certain places that were demarcated as "no-go areas" in other parts of the country for political rivals* This research has been directed by the cries of many South Africans pleading for political tolerance. Tolerance was a term used by both politicians and ordinary people alike and therefore open to misuse and various interpretations. As a term it was therefore without adequate clarification on its meaning. It is an attempt of this study to clarify and promote this value of tolerance. In Chapter One, the value of tolerance is examined. It is described as putting up with what is disliked or disapproved for the sake of others. But it is deliberate and is therefore a virtue. Positive attitudes, motives and power are central to tolerance. For tolerance to be sustained, solid foundations such as education, respect for others and their freedoms, democracy, justice, stability and reciprocity are to be laid. A light is also being shed on the limits of this virtue. Considerations and circumstances which need to be taken when deciding on each an action are the very motives and conditions for tolerance. This further makes the issue of tolerance to be complex. Church history shows that tolerance does not come naturally. It is a difficulty because of certain principles that are at stake. When viewed from the twentieth century perspective many of Church history's periods were of intolerance because the church had power. Tolerance was an exception, a plea of those without power. South Africa has to unlearn much of intolerance because of the past that militated against tolerance. Fortunately tolerance is now being firmly entrenched as law. Even though it is so, the tension of being tolerant and intolerant still exists especially in the whole area of abortion. Let us examine why tolerance is such a complex issue and a virtue to be promoted.

It is both a Constitutional imperative and the South African government's policy that the historical imbalances of the past be redressed. As a result thereof, the SANDF as a state entity is expected to comply with these stipulations. The objectives of this study are therefore to examine the nature of the policy of affirmative action in the SAMHS, and the nature of the problems experienced with regards to the implementation of this policy within this organisation during the period 1995 - 2000. On examining the nature of affirmative action policy in the SAMHS, it becomes obvious that this organisation did not have blacks as commissioned officers prior 1994. The number of black officers currently found within the SAMHS appears to have resulted from the integration process. Further analysis reveals that the SAMHS did not utilise the opportunity provided by the Defence Review in 1998 to become representative. Strategic positions were therefore still held by former white SADF members during the period under review. The sunset clause which was accepted during the political negotiations (1990 - 1994) seems to have contributed to the non implementation of this policy because the old guards' positions were secured during the first five years of the new democratic dispensation. / Dissertation (M (Political Policy Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Political Sciences / M (Political Policy Studies) / unrestricted

In this thesis, we study the Hawking and Unruh effects in time-dependent situations, as registered by localised spacetimes observers in several asymptotic situations. In 1+1 dimensions, we develop the Unruh-DeWitt detector model that is coupled to the proper time derivative of a real scalar field. This detector is insensitive to the well-known massless scalar field infrared ambiguity and has the correct massive-to-massless field limit. We then consider three scenarios of interest for the Hawking effect. The first one is an inertial detector in an exponentially receding mirror spacetime, which traces the onset of an energy flux from the mirror, with the expected Planckian late time asymptotics. The second one is the transition rate of a detector that falls in from infinity in Schwarzschild spacetime, gradually losing thermality. We find that the detector's transition rate diverges near the singularity proportionally to r^(-3/2). The third one is the characterisation of the strength of divergence of the transition rate and of the (smeared) renormalised local energy density along a trajectory that approaches the future Cauchy horizon of a (1+1)-dimensional spacetime that generalises the non-extremal Reissner-Nordström spacetime and shares its causal structure. In both cases, the strength of the divergence as a function of the proper time is as on approaching the Schwarzschild singularity. We then comment on the limitations of our (1+1)-dimensional analysis as a model for the full 3+1 treatment. In 3+1 dimensions, we revisit the Unruh effect and study the onset of the Unruh temperature. We treat an Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to a massless scalar through a smooth switching function of compact support and prove that, while the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger (KMS) condition and the detailed balance of the response are equivalent in the limit of long interaction time, this equivalence is not uniform in the detector's energy gap. That is, we prove that the infinite-time and large-energy limits do not commute. We then ask and answer the question of how long one needs to wait to detect the Unruh temperature up to a prescribed large energy scale. We show that, under technical conditions on the switching function, in this large energy gap regime an adiabatically switched detector following a Rindler orbit will thermalise in a time scale that is polynomially large in the energy. We then consider an interaction between the detector and the field that switches on, interacts constantly for a long time, and then switches off. We show that a polynomially fast thermalisation cannot occur if the constant interaction time is polynomially large in the energy, with the switching tails fixed. Thus, we conclude that the details of the switching are relevant when estimating thermalisation time-scales.

This thesis contains details of a series of experiments performed to investigate the acoustic and elastic properties of ultra-thin polymer structures. Three main investigations were conducted. The first involved studying quantised vibrations in ultra-thin (∼100 nm) polystyrene films on silicon substrates. These films were vibrated via the picosecond acoustic technique, an optical pump-probe method. Quantised, harmonic vibrations were observed in the films with frequencies of the order of 10 GHz. The polymer films were then loaded by evaporating small thicknesses (2.5 - 30 nm) of gold. The frequencies of loaded areas were observed relative to the unloaded films. This frequency shift is described via a theory that considers the elastic wave equation in the structure with appropriate boundary conditions. Excellent agreement between experiment and theory is achieved, suggesting the potential for using these films as ultra-sensitive mass sensors. The second experimental chapter deals with experiments performed on polymer Bragg reflectors. These multilayer structures were again investigated via the picosecond technique. The reflected intensity of the probe laser beam was observed to be modulated by the strain pulse as it travelled through the structure. These results were compared to theoretically generated signals and this comparison suggests that, in the polymer structures considered here, the modulation can be described almost exclusively by the photo-elastic effect. Although the modulation is small it opens up the possibility of using similar structures in combinations with micro-cavities to act as high frequency optical components. The final experimental chapter details attempts to develop a new metrology for elastic properties in ultra-thin polymer films floated on a water surface. The films were cut into annuli and placed on a Langmuir-Blodgett trough before surfactant was placed around the outside. By moving the barriers of the trough, a surface pressure difference between the inside and outside of the annulus could be controlled and a wrinkling pattern induced around the annulus. A system for imaging and counting the wrinkles as a function of the surface pressure difference was developed and a theory that attempts to describe this is detailed. While the experimental technique is successful in producing highly controlled, reproducible wrinkles, the theoretical analysis currently overestimates the Young's modulus of the films. The reasons for this as well as avenues for further work are considered. The results of these three investigations all demonstrate the rich physics accessible in ultra-thin polymer films. Furthermore, it points to their potential to b e a key material as devices are more commonly manufactured at the nano-scale.

The main topic of my dissertation is a referendum as an instrument of direct democracy. Czech Republic is one of the latest country to have joined the European Union, whose constitutional system does not have modification of a nationwide referendum. The aim of this work was to evaluate the approach and the content of government's draft of the constitutional law for the nationwide referendum presented as a Parliamentary Document No. 559, in comparison with its regulation in selected European countries. The author establishes several basic criteria which are mainly concluded through analysis and comparison. The results indicate we cannot expect any significant step forward in terms of civil participation and qualitative democratic progress in proposals describe above.

Since 1997, the UK constitution has undergone a transformation. This has since become a rolling process which shows little sign of abating. However, some of this constitutional change has been criticised for being rushed, piecemeal and with little consideration of the broader constitution. Yet, despite these criticisms, the underlying methodology of constitutional change has not been discussed in any great detail. This thesis, focusing on formal constitutional change, argues that the methodology to deliver that change should be enhanced to address these concerns. After establishing the limits of formal constitutional change, this thesis then considers how constitutional issues are approached within government and suggests that a Department of Legal Affairs would improve the preparation of proposed changes before being presented to Parliament. The politics of constitutional change are then analysed, with a particular focus on the process of coalition negotiations, which has become a new part of the methodology. The parliamentary process is considered by analysing the parliamentary passage of what became the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. Recent changes to parliamentary procedure have allowed Parliament to scrutinise constitutional legislation more effectively, although there are still areas for significant improvement, particularly during the Committee Stage in the House of Commons. The thesis then considers the role of referendums and establishes when a referendum is required either as a matter of law or convention. The thesis then shows how procedural innovations such as the constitutional conventions in Australia and Ireland or the citizens’ assemblies in British Columbia and Ontario could be used in the UK. Also, as any recommendations of a constitutional convention or a citizens’ assembly are usually put to the rest of the electorate at a referendum, the links between a convention or assembly and the referendum process are discussed. Taken together, these enhancements to discrete aspects of the methodology of constitutional change should ensure that changes are more considered and allow for a more a stable constitutional settlement.

This work explores the motivations of the two major parties in the civil war in the Vendée from 1793 to 1796. It suggests that traditional understandings overemphasize simplistic notions of the idealistic crusade; the Revolutionaries fought for Republican ideals, while the locals fought to defend traditional Catholicism. This thesis suggests that the major motive for both sides was a fight for survival that was framed and expressed in political and religious terms rather than motivated by them. The reason that these motives have been confused is a long misunderstood connection between the means of discourse, the structure of social values, and their connection to any individual’s perceived sense of safety, which suggests an ecological, or holistic, rather than a Manichaean framework.