The Wheels of Change of Constitutional Law and Constitutionalism in Africa – The BBI Court of Appeal Judgment in Kenya

ANALYSIS Jan Maina 07 January 2022 The Kenyan Constitutional Civil Appeal Case of Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission & 4 others v David Ndii & 82 others[2021] commonly referred to as the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) judgement, certainly impacts the constitutional jurisprudence within Kenya and Africa at large[1]. By declaring a presidential constitutional amendment unconstitutional…

The Contingent Role of the Basic Structure Doctrine for Constitutionalism in Africa

ANALYSIS Berihun Gebeye 05 November 2021 Kenyan courts’ use of the basic structure doctrine to strike down President Uhuru Kenyatta’s the Constitution of Kenya Amendment Bill 2020 as unconstitutional has attracted many reactions both in Kenya and abroad. We have seen extremely rich arguments about the basic structure doctrine in Kenya both in the High…

Insights and Additional Information on the Socio-Legal Discourse around Anti-Racism

Intersectionality as a Key Concept for the Protection Against Multiple Discrimination The concept of intersectionality takes into account the interpenetration of various identity categories like race, gender, class, sexuality and disability as well as the structural interlocking of multiple forms of oppression like racism, sexism, classism and heterosexism by using an analogy to traffic: “Discrimination,…

Constitutionalism in a Time of Corona

COMMENT Prof. Dr. Thoko Kaime 26 February 2021 Constitutionalism, the idea that officials must necessarily be circumscribed by institutions that restrict the exercise of state power; continues to face tremendous pressure across African jurisdictions as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage the Continent. As the imperative to protect lives underlines many a government’s response, it…

Land Rights in South Africa – Constitutional Law, Apartheid and Gender Inequality

ANALYSIS Sophie Stange 12 February 2021 In 2018, the High Court of South Africa delivered Rahube v Rahube and Others a landmark decision protecting women’s rights to equality and land ownership. On October 30, 2018 in the case of Rahube v Rahube and Others ZACC 42 the Constitutional Court upheld the Pretoria High Court’s finding…

Constitutional Crisis in Somalia – Democratic, Free and Fair Elections?

ANALYSIS René Brosius 10 February 2021 The upcoming presidential elections in Somalia are dominated by the debate on free and fair elections, a debate that brought the country to the brink of civil war. While the states of Puntland, Jubbaland as well as the united opposition in the country insist that the president’s term has…

Abortion Law – A Comparative Take on the Constitutional Framework of South Africa and Germany

COMMENT Freda Louwes 05 February 2021 In recent weeks and months, the topic of abortion has become a highly debated one in the media throughout the world. Last summer, despite the prevalence of the dangerous COVID-19 virus, thousands of people have gathered on the streets of Warsaw to protest the decision of the Polish Constitutional…

Somalia before the elections – From democratic election to dangerous selection process

ANALYSIS René Brosius 22 January 2021 On 9 January 2021, Somalia’s Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble surprised everyone by announcing that the planned elections would only be held in certain parts of the country. According to Article 1 (1) of Somalia’s provisional constitution, the country is “a federal, sovereign, and democratic republic founded on inclusive…

Observations on the Malawi Presidential Election Petition of 2019

ANALYSIS Prof. Dr Thoko Kaime, 8 May 2020 On 8 May 2020, the Supreme Court of Malawi upheld the judgement of the Constitutional Court in finding that Peter Mutharika was not duly elected as president of the Republic of Malawi in the May 2019 elections and ordering a fresh election within 150 days. The judgment…