Magister Artium (Social Work) - MA(SW) / The role of statutory social workers is often misperceived by other role players in interdisciplinary teams; but even more so in the law fraternity spectrum. As such, social workers experience many challenges working with attorneys, magistrates and court clerks because they are often undermined by their counterparts in the interdisciplinary team. This places great strain on professional relationships in settings where these professions are required to work collaboratively, such as statutory services with children and families. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand the role of the social worker in the interdisciplinary team providing statutory services to children and families in the Cape Metropole. The theoretical framework selected for this study is conflict theory, because it is suited to explain the often-strenuous relationship between social workers and the rest of the interdisciplinary team in the law fraternity.

La lontananza tra il diritto e l’“orizzonte” della fraternità è molto avvertita non solo nell’“accademia” ma anche nell’immaginario collettivo. Il tentativo di questa tesi è quello di dimostrare la possibilità, teorica e pratica, di accostare queste realtà apparentemente molto distanti e inconciliabili tra loro: il diritto, e in particolare il diritto pubblico, e il principio di fraternità. Dopo aver analizzato le difficoltà e le obiezioni fondamentali a tale ipotesi, la tesi propone alcune soluzioni e percorsi per cercare un dialogo, cioè per risolvere l’apparente antinomia tra la spontaneità della fraternità e la coattività tipica del diritto. Terreno di elezione per la messa alla prova dell’idea proposta è la Costituzione italiana e, in particolare, la fase della sua nascita. La convinzione che fa da sfondo alla ricerca è la consapevolezza che, per la comprensione dell’importanza teorica e pratica del principio giuridico di fraternità, occorre pur sempre partire dall’esperienza di un vissuto quotidiano di rapporti fraterni. / The distance between the law and the “horizon“ fraternity is felt not only in the “academic circles“ but also in the collective imagination. The aim of this dissertation is to prove the theoretical and practical possibility to combine these dimensions apparently distant and incompatible: the law, in particular public law, and the principle of fraternity. After analyzing the difficulties and the fundamental objections to this idea, the dissertation proposes some solutions and paths to search for a dialogue, that is, to solve the ostensible contradiction between the spontaneity of fraternity and the typical coercive character of law. The basis used to prove the sustained idea is the Italian Constitution and specifically the period of its birth. The background is the firm belief that in order to understand the theoretical and practical importance of the juridical principle of fraternity it's always necessary to start from the fraternal relationships experienced in the daily life.