As at January 2008, SAIFAC has a full-time salaried staff complement of seven people: a Director, the Director’s PA, a Deputy Director, two senior researchers, one junior researcher, and an office assistant. There are five postgraduate students based at SAIFAC, who are not salaried but supported financially through the payment of quarterly stipends. In addition to these permanent staff, SAIFAC has three research associates, who are employed full-time at one of the surrounding universities, but who co-operate with SAIFAC staff on research projects, attend our public seminars where relevant to their research, and make use of the Constitutional Court library. At any one time, there may also be one or more visiting sabbatical fellows at SAIFAC and a student intern.
Theunis Roux - Director
Theunis Roux BA (Hons) LLB (Cape Town) PhD (Cantab) holds dual appointments as Honorary Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria. He co-teaches the LLM Course in Advanced Constitutional Law at Wits, and contributes to the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation at Pretoria. From January 2005 he has been the Secretary-General of the International Association of Constitutional Law, the world’s largest scientific association of legal academics and judges devoted to the study of comparative constitutional law. He is an editor of the South African Law Journal, the Constitutional Court Review and Constitutional Law of South Africa, and serves on the Advisory Board of the African Human Rights Law Reports. His main research interests are the politics of constitutional review in new democracies, constitutional property law, land reform, and socio-economic rights. In addition to academic research, he consults to government and the private sector on statute law revision, regulation impact analysis, land reform, housing rights and public law generally. From 1991-1993 he was a member of the African National Congress Land Claims Court Working Group, the body responsible for developing the policy on which the South African Restitution of Land Rights Act was eventually based.
E-mail: theunis@saifac.org.za
Dolores Joseph - Personal Assistant to Director
E-mail: dolores@saifac.org.za
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Redson Kapindu - Deputy Director
Redson Kapindu holds an LL.B (Hons) from the University of Malawi, a Diploma in Human Rights from Lund University, and an LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa from the University of Pretoria. Apart from his responsibilities as Deputy Director of SAIFAC, Redson is currently reading towards his PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand. He has previously held various positions in Malawi including serving as Director of Legal Services at the Malawi Human Rights Commission, Vice President of the Malawi Law Society and Commissioner on the Special Law Commission on the Review of Child Rights Related Legislation of the Malawi Law Commission. He also serves as an Associate Editor on the Editorial Board of the recently introduced Malawi Law Journal. Redson has been involved in public interest litigation in Malawi, Zambia and Tanzania and has consulted for institutions in Malawi and internationally on various human rights and other legal issues. His major research interests are on human rights, forced migration law and international politics.
E-mail: redson@saifac.org.za
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David Bilchitz - Senior Researcher
Dr. David Bilchitz has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from Wits University. He graduated with an MPhil in Philosophy from St John's College, University of Cambridge in 2001 and with a PHD in political philosophy and law from the same university in 2004. His book on ‘Poverty and Fundamental Rights: the Justification and Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights’ was published by Oxford University Press in February 2007. He has several other publications in areas that include the Law of Evidence, Socio-Economic Rights, and Persons and Family law. His current research focuses on the relationship between business and human rights. His research interests include the intersection between political philosophy and constitutional law and the institutional implications in a wide-range of diverse areas.
David completed his articles at Ross Kriel Attorneys from August 2004, where he gained expertise in public sector law. He was admitted as an attorney in May 2007. He has also worked for three years as a sessional lecturer in jurisprudence at the University of the Witwatersrand Law School and is currently Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand. He is currently employed full-time as senior researcher at the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law.
David is also a committed activist working towards social reform with his involvement in feminist, gay rights, poverty and animal rights issues. Recently, he was one of the key drivers in the campaign for civil marriage for same-sex couples in South Africa and acted as legal adviser to the Joint Working Group (a coalition of 17 lesbian and gay organisations). He has also campaigned for shelters for the homeless, has taught literacy and numeracy skills to streetchildren, has worked on improving dialogue between Jews and Palestinians surrounding the Arab-Israeli conflict and is a founder member of the Legal Alliance for Animal Welfare.
E-mail: davidb@saifac.org.za
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Sebastian Seedorf - Senior Researcher
Sebastian, a German national, has a long affiliation with South African constitutional law. After graduating in law from Düsseldorf University in 1998, Sebastian went to pursue a Master of Laws degree at the University of Cape Town. He continued to write his PhD thesis on a comparison of German and South African constitutional law doctrines relating to the so-called horizontal application of the Bill of Rights. In 2001, Sebastian clerked for Judge Laurie Ackermann at the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
After he completed articles, Sebastian worked briefly for a law firm in Berlin before joining the German Federal Ministry of the Interior. In the Ministry, Sebastian’s tasks involved international negotiations and drafting legal opinions with regard to counter-terrorism issues.
Sebastian has now been placed with SAIFAC as a technical expert on German and International constitutional law through the Centrum für Internationale Migration (CIM), an agency of German development cooperation.
His main fields of interest are comparative constitutional law and the relation between state security and individual rights.
E-mail: sebastian@saifac.org.za
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Michael Bishop - Junior Researcher
Michael Bishop BA LLB LLM (UP) is a junior researcher at SAIFAC for the first six months of 2008. He is also a research associate at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria and an extraordinary lecturer at the same university where he teaches South African constitutional law to LLM students. He is an editor of the seminal work Constitutional Law of South Africa and his main work at SAIFAC is focused on bringing the book up to date. From 2006-2007 he was a clerk to Chief Justice Pius Langa at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. At the same time he completed an LLM in Critical Legal Theory focusing on issues of human rights and identity. His primary interests are in human rights, particularly equality, culture, religion and expression, constitutional structures, the working of the Constitutional Court and applying critical theory to constitutional law. Michael’s current research projects are on constitutional remedies and dismissed cases at the Constitutional Court. His future plans are to study further overseas and then to join the bar in South Africa.
E-mail: michael@saifac.org.za
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Vusi Ncube - Office Assistant
E-mail: vusi@saifac.org.za
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Solomon Dersso - Doctoral Fellow
Solomon Ayele Dersso is a doctoral fellow at SAIFAC. He is also a PhD candidate at the School of Law, the University of the Witwatersrand. His PhD research explores the legal framework for addressing the issue of minorities in Africa. Solomon holds an LLB from the Faculty of Law, Addis Ababa University and an LLM in Human Rights and Democratization in Africa from the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. He also has advanced diplomas on international human rights law and on Linguistic and Minority Rights from the Institute for Human Rights, Abo Akademi, Finland. Before joining SAIFAC, Solomon served as a lecturer at law at the Faculty of Law, Addis Ababa University, and at various colleges in Addis Ababa. He also worked at the Office for University Reform of Addis Ababa University. His areas of research and teaching interest include constitutional law, constitutional theory and mechanisms for the accommodation of groups, the theory and law of minority and indigenous peoples’ rights, and international law (particularly as it relates to human rights and peace and security).
E-mail: solomon@saifac.org.za
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Mmatsie Mooki - Doctoral Fellow
Mmatsie Mooki holds a B Iuris (cum laude) from Vista University, an LLB from
the University of Free State and an LLM from the University of Pretoria.
Following the completion of her degrees, she worked as a lecturer at the
University of the Free State and the University of the North West (Mafikeng
campus). She joined SAIFAC as a doctoral fellow in April 2007. Her LLD
research topic, which has been registered at the University of Pretoria, is "Access to legal abortion in SADC from a reproductive health rights
perspective: a need for reform?"
Research Activities
"The African Regional Courts and their role in the promotion and protection
of human rights: The Southern African Community Development Tribunal" in
(2007) 6 Judicial Watch Report (Kenya section of the International
Commission of Jurists, 2007)
E-mail: mmatsie@saifac.org.za
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George Mukundi - Doctoral Fellow
SAIFAC doctoral research fellow and LLD candidate at the University of Pretoria. His doctoral research examines the legal framework that protects indigenous peoples’ land and resource rights in Kenya. Mr Wachira is an advocate of the High Court of Kenya and holds an LLB degree with honours from the University of Nairobi and an LLM from the University of Pretoria. He has diplomas in legal education from the Kenya School of Law; advanced course on international protection of human rights from the Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland and professional certificates from the ILO Training Centre in Turin, Italy and Universities of Bochum and University of Bonn, Germany.
He has previously worked with a law firm and civil society organisations in Kenya, the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Cairo, Egypt (UNHCR) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in The Gambia. He has undertaken research consultancies on behalf of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Institute for Security Studies (ISS) (Pretoria and Addis Ababa), Minority Rights Group International (MRG), the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria and the International Commission of Jurists (Kenya).
His research and teaching interests are: Constitutional law; Fundamental human rights and freedoms; Land reform; International and regional human rights law; Public interest litigation; and Clinical legal education. He has published on the African human rights system; refugee law; African unity and integration; indigenous people’ rights; constitutional commissions; and on civic professionalism.
Mr Wachira is a member of the Global Alliance for Justice Education of which he is the inaugural general secretary. He is also an associate editor and scholar - Centre for World Indigenous Studies; member - International Association of Forced Migration; and researcher - Global Development Network
E-mail: mukundi@saifac.org.za
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Godfrey Musila - Doctoral Fellow
Godfrey Musila holds LLB (hons) from the University of Nairobi and LLM from the University of Pretoria. He is reading for his PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law in Johannesburg at which he also lectures various subjects in international law. His PhD study focuses on victims’ rights in the International Criminal Court. His research interests include international criminal law, humanitarian law, human rights and transitional justice and African institutions. Prior to his doctoral fellowship at SAIFAC, he lectured in the UNISA LLB programme at the Kenya College of Accountancy, Nairobi.
E-mail: godfrey@saifac.org.za
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Ngwako Rabokshakga - LLM Student
Ngwako Raboshakga grew up in Limpopo Province, where he completed most of his primary schooling. He later attended high school in Auckland Park, Johannesburg, while living in Soweto. He pursued his tertiary studies at the University of the Witwatersrand between 2003 and 2004, where he completed an LLB degree. During his time at Wits, he was a student leader, holding positions as Secretary-General of the Wits Law Students Council (2005/6) and Community Development Officer of the Wits Law Students Council (2004/5). He was also a member of the Wits Law School Teaching and Learning Committee (2005/6), the University of the Witwatersrand Disciplinary Committee (2006), and a senior member of the Wits Volunteer Programme (2004-2006). In his penultimate and final years of study, he was a recipient of the Attorneys Fidelity Fund Bursary and Read Hope Phillips Thomas & Cadman Inc Final Year Scholarship. He also participated in the student vacation programmes at Webber Wentzel Bowens Attorneys and Read Hope Phillips Thomas & Cadman Inc. After leaving law school, he served as a researcher at the Constitutional Court in the chambers of Justice Bess Nkabinde, from January to December 2007. While at the Court, he chaired the Judges' Clerks Liaison Committee and was Vice-Chairperson of the Constitutional Court Law Clerks' Alumni Association Management Committee. He is currently registered for a full-time LLM degree in public law at the University of the Witwatersrand.
E-mail: ngwako@saifac.org.za
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Hannah Woolaver
Hannah Woolaver completed her LLB at the University of Durham, England, and the BCL at Oxford University. Her primary research interests are comparative public and human rights law, and public international law. She joins SAIFAC as a student intern to assist with the process of updating the latest edition of The Constitutional Law of South Africa. After finishing her internship at SAIFAC she intends to undertake a doctorate on the meaning of State sovereignty in contemporary international law.
E-mail: hannah.woolaver@googlemail.com
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Stu Woolman
E-mail: stuwoolman@mweb.co.za
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Mia Swart
Mia is a senior lecturer in the Law School of the University of the Witwatersrand. She obtained an LLM from Humboldt University in Berlin in 1999. After completing her articles she obtained a PhD at Leiden University under the supervision of Prof. John Dugard. She was funded by the Huygens and Mandela scholarships. She has published in the fields of international criminal law and constitutional law. In 2007 she received a Humboldt research fellowship for research at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg.
E-mail: Mia.Swart@wits.ac.za
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Werner Scholtz
Professor Werner Scholtz graduated with a BA LLB in 1998 from the University of Potchefstroom, and obtained his doctorate in environmental law at the University of Leiden in 2001. He was employed by the Chemical and Allied Industries' Association (CAIA) from 2000-2002. He then received a grant from DAAD and the Verein zur Förderung der Rechtswissenschaft for post-doctoral research, which was conducted at the Ruhr University, Germany, as well as the University of Potchefstroom. He was appointed as an Associate Professor at the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, in 2004. In 2006, he received the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Stipendium and in this capacity visited the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. He has also been appointed as Lehrbeauftragte (visiting professor) at the Chair for Public Law, Ruhr University, Germany. He was promoted to the position of full professor at North-West University in 2008.
He has been a Research Associate at SAIFAC since 2007. His main area of interest is international environmental law.
E-mail: werner.scholtz@nwu.ac.za
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Iain Benson
See Iain Benson's profile on the website of the Centre for Cultural Renewal >>>
E-mail: iainbenson2@gmail.com
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