Magister Legum - LLM / This study explored the various forms public interest litigation takes in various legal systems, focusing on the practice in South Africa. An examination of the relevant legal regime in Ethiopia was made with a view to assessing its adequacy to cater for public interest actions and coming up with possible recommendations. Apart from the analysis of the adequacy of the legal framework, an attempt was made to identify other factors that may pose a challenge to the introduction of the system in Ethiopia. / South Africa

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Bryn Mawr College, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-229).

<p>This study explored the various forms public interest litigation takes in various legal systems, focusing on the practice in South Africa. An examination of the relevant legal regime in Ethiopia was made with a view to assessing its adequacy to cater for public interest actions and coming up with possible recommendations. Apart from the analysis of the adequacy of the legal framework, an attempt was made to identify other factors that may pose a challenge to the introduction of the system in Ethiopia.</p>

<p>This study explored the various forms public interest litigation takes in various legal systems, focusing on the practice in South Africa. An examination of the relevant legal regime in Ethiopia was made with a view to assessing its adequacy to cater for public interest actions and coming up with possible recommendations. Apart from the analysis of the adequacy of the legal framework, an attempt was made to identify other factors that may pose a challenge to the introduction of the system in Ethiopia.</p>

A dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts by Dissertation to the School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2016 / This dissertation is an investigation of the conditions that would bring about the legal enforcement of the right to access sufficient food in South Africa as premised on the Constitution. This is motivated by the fact that modern-society has seen a gradual increase in the occurrence of socio-economic rights being protected through the legal opportunity structure of countries, ultimately leading to public interest litigation. At present, the right to food is being violated in South Africa. Taking into account the ambit of the constitution and several international instruments that speak to its realisation and the fact that there has been litigation on other socio-economic rights, suggesting that tools for litigation are in place, it is perplexing that right to food litigation has not taken place. The research question of this paper is therefore: which factors and conditions would have to be present for there to arise public interest litigation on the right to food in South Africa? Due to the fact that literature on right to food litigation is almost non-existent, especially for the African context, this is an explorative case study. The dissertation utilises an analytical framework to study the prospect of litigation on the right to food becoming a reality. The study is largely theory-driven, relying on various sources of evidence: secondary literature, conducted-research and official state documents speaking to the countries right to food narrative. The analysis reveals that there are many barriers to right to food litigation in South Africa. These mainly have to do with the conditions that impact the manner in which right to food violations are understood by the poor and marginalised in society on one hand and the responsiveness of the courts to the voice of the marginalised and poor on the other. The dissertation concludes that the most crucial factors for right to food litigation in South Africa to arise are the need for more information and awareness around the right to food; improved legal assistance for the hungry and poor; more trust in the legal system amongst those at the bottom of the pyramid; the need for a stronger focus on litigation strategies by civil society and advocacy groups and the need for judges to be more innovative in carrying-out their duties. The conclusions of this study have relevance for those working actively for the promotion and realisation of the right to food in South Africa. / GR2017

In 1986, the Supreme Court of Canada cogently summarized various judicial concerns relating to the expansion of public interest standing. In doing so, the Supreme Court invited judges to engage in a purposive and functional enquiry in exercising their discretion to grant access to public interest litigants. That enquiry should take account of the broad social, political and legal factors that provide the backdrop to the constitutional claim. However, both judges and commentators alike have failed to meet this challenge. Instead, they have applied the principles of standing in an increasingly categorical and abstract manner. To this end, they have employed the abstractly defined, directly affected individual without considering who he or she is in the particular circumstances, or what benefits he or she would bring to the litigation process. This is of particular concern when our context is inequality. The increasing abstraction of public interest standing jars discordantly with the purposive interpretation of section 15(1) of the Charter, so that while equality is determined in a contextual fashion, equal access is still conceived of in an abstract fashion. In abstracting the directly affected individual out of relations of radical inequality, there has been a presumption that we all, as individuals, have an equal opportunity (and equal resources) to raise our constitutional concerns in the courts. This presumption cannot be accepted. We need to inject some context into standing. To do so, we must appreciate that inequality is a product of the distribution of power in society, and that equality is to be furthered through multi-dimensionality and respect for diversity. Armed with these insights, we must revisit the judicial concerns that underpin the development of the public interest standing doctrine, and unpack their meaning in a purposive fashion. When we do so, we will begin to appreciate that the traditional resolution of these concerns actually serves to exclude disadvantaged persons from enforcing their Charter rights and obscures the diffuse causality characteristics of disadvantage. From the contextual perspective of social-inequality-as-power, the concerns underpinning public interest standing actually promote judicial access for the public interest organization that represents disadvantaged persons.

No description available.

A noção de indisponibilidade do interesse público tem servido tradicionalmente para justificar a obrigatoriedade de o advogado público, nas demandas ajuizadas contra o Estado, exaurir acriticamente os meios de oposição processual ao seu alcance. Este trabalho visa a demonstrar a insustentabilidade desse paradigma de resistência processual irrefletida, desnudando a fragilidade de seus fundamentos teóricos e os crescentes efeitos nocivos de sua prática. Demonstrar-se-á que, muita vez, é a não resistência processual que realiza o melhor interesse público. Haverá também a particular análise de como certas disfunções burocráticas têm sido determinantes para a manutenção do perfil tradicional de atuação da Advocacia Pública. Por fim, serão apresentados e postos à prova os aperfeiçoamentos institucionais que eliminariam ou reduziriam os excessos que ainda marcam a postura da Fazenda Pública em juízo

In 1986, the Supreme Court of Canada cogently summarized various judicial concerns relating to the expansion of public interest standing. In doing so, the Supreme Court invited judges to engage in a purposive and functional enquiry in exercising their discretion to grant access to public interest litigants. That enquiry should take account of the broad social, political and legal factors that provide the backdrop to the constitutional claim. However, both judges and commentators alike have failed to meet this challenge. Instead, they have applied the principles of standing in an increasingly categorical and abstract manner. To this end, they have employed the abstractly defined, directly affected individual without considering who he or she is in the particular circumstances, or what benefits he or she would bring to the litigation process. This is of particular concern when our context is inequality. The increasing abstraction of public interest standing jars discordantly with the purposive interpretation of section 15(1) of the Charter, so that while equality is determined in a contextual fashion, equal access is still conceived of in an abstract fashion. In abstracting the directly affected individual out of relations of radical inequality, there has been a presumption that we all, as individuals, have an equal opportunity (and equal resources) to raise our constitutional concerns in the courts. This presumption cannot be accepted. We need to inject some context into standing. To do so, we must appreciate that inequality is a product of the distribution of power in society, and that equality is to be furthered through multi-dimensionality and respect for diversity. Armed with these insights, we must revisit the judicial concerns that underpin the development of the public interest standing doctrine, and unpack their meaning in a purposive fashion. When we do so, we will begin to appreciate that the traditional resolution of these concerns actually serves to exclude disadvantaged persons from enforcing their Charter rights and obscures the diffuse causality characteristics of disadvantage. From the contextual perspective of social-inequality-as-power, the concerns underpinning public interest standing actually promote judicial access for the public interest organization that represents disadvantaged persons. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

No description available.