PhD, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, 2006

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which participatory deliberative democracy is being practised in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe. The nature of public participation determines the character, quality and extent of consultations and democratic deliberation in policy formulation Constitution making has inescapably remained an ‘unfinished business’ in Zimbabwe as a consequence of the Lancaster House settlement of 1979. Yet, a national constitution is a biography of the nation, whose crafting must embody legitimacy and credibility. This research sought to examine the processes available for public participation for constitution making in Zimbabwe. The research focused on the constitution making process as a case study against the background of a partocratic policy making system that existed since 1980, and the advent of the Inclusive Government consummated on 13 February 2009 whose policy making architecture is premised on the GPA. The central question of this study was: “What processes are being used to secure deliberative democratic participation in the constitution design process in Zimbabwe? The research relied on documentary evidence, the researcher’s experience and observations as well as targeted semistructured interviews on public participation in the constitution making process in Zimbabwe for data collection, as a case study. The researcher relied on secondary data from published and unpublished literature and tracked newspaper publications to gather data related to the constitution making process. The researcher also visited and observed some of the Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) outreach meetings to gather information relating to the quality of deliberation at the meetings. The main findings were that the COPAC structure did not adequately provide a framework for delivering deliberative democracy as political parties retained decision making at stages of the process. The research concluded that political parties, the Executive and Parliament, dominated the process. Participation was cosmetic and “Executo-partocratic driven” rather than a “people-driven” process. The prevalence of citizen harassment and intimidation as well as the occurrence of violence during the consultative process hampered meaningful participation in deliberative processes by citizens. Similarly the inauspicious operating environment discouraged the free flow of information and debate, alienating citizen views and limiting deliberative participatory democracy. In the main, the policy making approach adopted was ‘Executo-partocratic’ and as such limited the citizens participation in equal, open and free deliberation resulting in a process that lacked legitimacy and credibility.

This thesis is concerned with aspects of quantum theory of fields in flat and curved spacetimes of arbitrary dimensions along with detecting bosons and fermions on these spacetimes. The thesis is divided into two main parts. In the first part, we analyse an Unruh-DeWitt particle detector that is coupled linearly to the scalar density of a massless Dirac field (neutrino field) in Minkowski spacetimes of dimension d ≥ 2 and on the two-dimensional static Minkowski cylinder, allowing the detector’s motion to remain arbitrary and working to leading order in perturbation theory. In d-dimensional Minkowski spacetime, with the field in the usual Fock vacuum, we show that the detector’s response is identical to that of a detector coupled linearly to a massless scalar field in 2d-dimensional Minkowski. In the special case of uniform linear acceleration, the detector’s response hence exhibits the Unruh effect with a Planckian factor in both even and odd dimensions, in contrast to the Rindler power spectrum of the Dirac field, which has a Planckian factor for odd d but a Fermi-Dirac factor for even d. On the two-dimensional cylinder, we set the oscillator modes in the usual Fock vacuum but allow an arbitrary state for the zero mode of the periodic spinor. We show that the detector’s response distinguishes the periodic and antiperiodic spin structures, and the zero mode of the periodic spinor contributes to the response by a state-dependent but well defined amount. Explicit analytic and numerical results on the cylinder are obtained for inertial and uniformly accelerated trajectories, recovering the d = 2 Minkowski results in the limit of large circumference. The detector’s response has no infrared ambiguity for d = 2, neither in Minkowski nor on the cylinder. In the second part, firstly, we give a thorough discussion for the Bogolubov transformation for Dirac field, and discuss pair creation in a non-stationary spacetime. Secondly, we derive the in and out vacua Wightman two-point functions for the Dirac field and the Klein-Gordon field for certain class of spatially flat Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) cosmological spacetimes wherein the two-point functions have the Hadamard form. We then establish the equivalence between the adiabatic vacuum of infinite order and the conformal vacuum in the massless limit. With the field in the conformal Fock vacuum, we then show that the detector’s response to an UDW particle detector coupled linearly to the scalar density of a massless Dirac field in the spatially flat FRW spacetimes in d-dimensions is identical to the response of a detector coupled to the massless scalar field in the spatially flat FRW spacetimes in 2d-dimensions. Lastly, we discuss a massive scalar field in the spatially compactified (1 + 1)-dimensional FRW spacetime. There, the issue of the conformal zero momentum mode arises. To resolve this issue, we develop a new scheme for quantizing the conformal zero-mode. This new quantization scheme introduces a family of two real parameters for every zero-momentum mode with an associated two-real-parameter set of in/out vacua. We then show that the zero momentum initial state’s wave functional corresponds to a two-real parameter set of Gaussian wave packets. For applications, we examine the finite-time detector’s response to a massive scalar field in the (1 + 1)-dimensional, spatially compactified Milne spacetime. Explicit analytic results are obtained for the comoving and inertially non-comoving trajectories. Numerical results are provided for the comoving trajectory. The numerical results suggest that when the in-vacuum is chosen to be very far from the conventional Minkowski vacuum state, then it contains particles. As result, spontaneous excitation of the comoving detector occurs.

Rydberg-dressed ground state atoms are atoms with an electron off-resonantly excited to a very high energy state, i.e., a state of high principal quantum number n ≫ 1. This thesis investigates the quantum dynamics of interacting Rydberg-dressed ground state atoms trapped in several multi-well potential traps. Rydberg atoms are atoms with exaggerated properties. One of their most interesting properties is that they exhibit a strong and long-ranged interaction that can be tuned leading to a variety of different quantum behaviours. My work focuses on studying the effects of these interacting atoms when loaded in multi-well potential traps. Generally, multi-well systems are considered as the simplest example of a finite optical lattice structure. For this reason, this thesis covers three research topics that examine the effects of long-range interaction on Rydberg-dressed atoms trapped in several potential confinements. I begin, in the introduction, by discussing the theoretical background of relevance to this work. It starts with presenting the physics of Bose-Einstein condensate. Then, the fundamentals of the interaction between two-level atom and light are analytically studied. This study has the purpose of understanding both; the dressed interacting atoms and optical lattices. The definition, characteristics, and the nature of the interaction between Rydberg atoms are analysed afterwards. The second chapter examines the dynamics of an ensemble of interacting Rydberg- dressed atoms trapped in static, i.e., time-independent, multi-well potentials using a mean-field theoretical approach. I choose one-dimensional double- and triple-well in addition to a two-dimensional quadruple-well potentials. The time-dependent non-linear Gross-Pitaevskii equation is used to numerically explore the ensemble's quantum dynamics. Solving the dynamical differential equations along with tuning the strength of the applied long-range interaction shows that the behaviour of non-interacting Rydberg-dressed atoms does not differ conceptually according to the geometry of the trapping potential. However, this changes when the interactions are switched on where the shape of the confinement leads to interesting outcomes especially in the non-linear interacting limit, such as macroscopic quantum self-trapping. After investigating an ensemble of interacting Rydberg-dressed atoms in static multi-well potential traps, the second research topic examines the dynamical evolution of these atoms when loaded in a finite optical lattice using the extended Bose-Hubbard model. In this chapter, the atoms ensemble is assumed to be in a superfluid state where I investigate both, the order parameter when the Rydberg excitation laser is applied and the interference pattern of the condensates in different dimensions. The study shows the emerging long-range interactions lead to a rapid collapse of the superfluid order parameter and in general allow only for partial revivals. In addition, the interference experiments can directly reveal the interaction between Rydberg-dressed atoms. In the fourth chapter, the dynamics of Rydberg-dressed atoms trapped in a dynamical, i.e., time-dependent, potential confinement is presented. The dynamical trap is constructed such that it begins as a harmonic oscillator and ends as a double- well potential. The analysis investigates an ensemble of contact-interacting atoms via the time-dependent non-linear GP equation.

Constitutional development in England in the 17th century summary This thesis deals with an important period in English constitutional history. It focuses on the position of English kings and their dispute with English parliament over decisive power in the state. It attempts to describe the main changes in position of the English king and considers significance of the 17th century especially for the later development of parliamentary form of English government. The thesis is divided into four main chapters. First chapter describes the system of English law including common law, case law or law of equity and important royal prerogatives of the king for example the right to summon or dissolve parliament, to appoint judges of common law courts and royal councillors and also events of previous century, specially establishing the Church of England when house of Tudor ruled in England. Furthermore it briefly follows the historical development of parliament and its powers. Next chapters are divided according to the traditional periods of the century to years 1600-1640, 1640-1660 and 1660-1700. Individual subchapters concentrate on reign of each Stuart king. Chief attention is given to the dramatic reign of Charles I. in relation to the English civil war and execution of the king. Dispute between English kings and...

The research included in this thesis comes in two main bodies. In the first, the focus is on intensity interferometric schemes, and I attempt to identify the types of correlations dominant in their operation. This starts with the, now rather historical, Hanbury Brown and Twiss setup from the 1950s and progresses to more recent interests such as ghost imaging and a variant of `quantum illumination', which is a quantum-enhanced detection scheme. These schemes are considered in the continuous variable regime, with Gaussian states in particular. Intensity interferometry has been the cause of a number of disputes between quantum opticians over the past 60 years and I weigh in on the arguments using relatively recent techniques from quantum information theory. In the second half, the focus turns away from the optical imaging and detection schemes, and onto quantum estimation -- multiparameter quantum estimation to be precise. This is an intriguing area of study where one has to carefully juggle tradeoffs in choosing both the optimal measurement and optimal state for performing an estimation in two or more parameters. I lay out a framework for circumventing some of the difficulties involved in this and apply it to several physical examples, revealing some interesting and at times counterintuitive features of multiparameter estimation.

本文主旨在探討中華民國憲政改革的關鍵時期，民國七十九～八十一年的三次憲改會議，包括七十九年國事會議、八十年一屆國民大會二次臨時會、八十一年二屆國民大會一次臨時會，論述重點有兩方面：（一）憲政制度的修改是否合乎法理，（二）現實政治權力的運作過程如何影響憲政治度的走向。全文共分五章，略述如下：第一章：緒論。說明研究動機與方法。第二章：憲政改革背景。說明國民政府、中華民國政府時期立憲與行憲的歷程。第三章：國是會異。說明國是會議的召開經過。第四章：一機關兩階段修憲。說明一屆國大二次臨時會、二屆國大一次臨時會的集會內容。第五章：結論。思考我國中央政府體制的走向。

Thesis (M.A. (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

After falling out of favor during the twentieth century, originalism has returned as a compelling and popular interpretive theory. Modern originalism is typically associated with political conservatives. In Reexamining Originalism, I argue that a progressive form of originalism is both more faithful to the Constitution and more similar to early originalism than conservative originalism. The key difference is that progressive originalism respects the Constitution's status as secondary law, whereas conservative originalism is overly concerned with preserving primary applications of law.

This article is presented in five parts. The first part consists of this introduction, which is followed by a discussion of the Canadian legal position in part two. The cases of R v Collins1 and R v Stillman,2 as well as the impact of these cases on the Canadian admissibility framework, will be explored. In addition, the adapted fair trial requirement developed and applied by the Ontario Court of Appeal in R v Grant,3 and the revised admissibility framework recently introduced by the Supreme Court of Canada in the appeal of R v Grant,4 will be analysed. Part three discusses the jurisprudence of s 35(5) of South Africa’s Constitution. An alternative admissibility framework is suggested in part four, followed by a short conclusion in part five. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996,5 provides that South African courts may, when interpreting the Bill of Rights, seek guidance from comparable foreign law jurisdictions in order to give meaning to its provisions.6 The South African Supreme Court of Appeal and the High Courts,7 as well as scholarly writers,8 have indicated that the provisions contained in s 24(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms9 and s 35(5) of the Bill of Rights are strikingly similar.10 This could be one of the reasons why the South African courts have opted to be guided by their Canadian counterparts.11 The Canadian admissibility frameworks, established to determine whether unconstitutionally obtained evidence should be received or excluded, have for decades been the subject of rigorous scholarly criticism. As a result thereof, and the subsequent reaction by the Ontario Court of Appeal, the admissibility framework has recently been revised by the Supreme Court of Canada. Given that s 35(5) of the South African Constitution is modelled on s 24(2) of the Canadian Charter, the manner in which the courts of that country have grappled with the interpretation of s 24(2) is of particular importance to South Africa.12