STAFF
We are extremely proud of Dr. Stephan van der Merwe, who recently obtained his Doctor of Laws. The title of his dissertation is “Developing a Procedural Framework for Advanced Debtor Protection: The Case of Emolument Attachment Orders”. Although the dissertation focuses on the position of abused debtors, it evidences that legal reforms are also needed to serve the interests of creditors, employers and the broader society. Many congratulations! It is very well deserved, especially given all your hard work and sacrifice.
The Clinic is very proud of two of our candidate legal practitioners, Stephanie O ‘Reilly and Elandré van der Gryp, who recently received confirmation that they passed all their attorney admission examination papers. Many congratulations!
The Clinic is very proud of the achievements of our managing attorney, Prof. Theo Broodryk, who has been appointed, in terms of section 3(1)(f) of the Rules Board for Courts of Law Act, 1985, as a member of the Rules Board for Courts of Law. This appointment is with effect from 30 November 2022 for a period of 5 years.
Attorney Nikita Stander was awarded her LLM degree in April. The title of her thesis is ‘Developing a framework for mediating farm evictions and security of tenure related disputes in South Africa’. The Clinic is now in the process of seeking to implement the findings and recommendations in her thesis so as to assist in developing the mediation framework in ESTA.
Nikita Stander participated in the WIETA ethical leadership webinar series on 26 September, in a session titled ‘landowners and occupiers: their respective rights under ESTA and PIE’.
Consultant Marié Booyens obtained her LLM degree in April. Title of thesis: Community-based mental health care for adults with psychosocial disabilities in South Africa through a right to health lens. She will be presenting this research at the World Congress of Constitutional Law, held at the University of Johannesburg in December 2022.
The Clinic conducted a workshop on security of tenure of farm occupiers on 26 November. The workshop was extremely well attended and all participants indicated that they had learnt a lot regarding their rights and obligations as farm occupiers in terms of ESTA.
Ms. Josie Parks, our family law attorney recently completed the 40-hour divorce mediation course through the Family Mediators Association of the Cape (FAMAC). The aim of this course is to educate practitioners on the process and advantages of mediation as a form of alternative dispute resolution in divorce matters. We welcome this into our practice and look forward to incorporating mediation within our divorce matters in future.
On 15 December 2022, the Clinic co-hosted the United Nations Office of Drugs and Corruption (UNODC) Workshop for University Lecturers on Integrity and Ethics Education. The workshop was held under the UNODC Global Resource for Anti-Corruption Education and Youth Empowerment (GRACE) initiative and was aimed at academics interested in teaching integrity and ethics-related courses. The Clinic’s Stephan van der Merwe presented a session under the topic of Integrity and ethics education in South Africa, with the aim of providing an overview of good practices and examples of education on integrity and ethics in African universities.