Monday, 20 February, is World Day of Social Justice.

The theme for this year is “Overcoming Barriers and Unleashing Opportunities for Social Justice”.

“Social justice makes societies and economies function better and reduces poverty, inequalities and social tensions. It plays an important role in attaining more inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development paths,” according to the United Nations (UN) information page on the event.

“It is more important than ever that the multilateral system coalesce around a set of shared values and goals and identify the means to respond to people’s aspirations and needs. Social justice has therefore to become one of the cornerstones of the renewed multilateralism that is required; a rallying objective but also a significant instrument for a more efficient multilateral system, ensuring coherence across a range of policy areas.”

On Monday, 20 February, at 2pm, Defend Our Democracy and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation will be joining #UniteBehind for a briefing on the Judge Makhubele Judicial Conduct Tribunal. The trial itself is taking place between 21 and 24 February.

The briefing will be at Mancosa at 1 Cedar Avenue, Auckland Park, Johannesburg.

“#UniteBehind has accused Judge Tintswalo Annah Nana Makhubele of judicial misconduct relating to alleged gross misconduct while she was both a judge and chair of the Prasa [Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa] board,” according to the event description.

On Monday at 4pm, the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research is hosting a seminar on the paper, “The Memory Flâneur in Teju Cole’s Open City”, presented by Sakiru Adebayo of the department of English at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan.

“In this paper, I engage with Charles Baudelaire and Walter Benjamin’s idea of the flâneur in order to articulate my own concept of the memory flâneur. I argue that while wandering through a city’s memorial sites may have been implied in Baudelaire and Benjamin’s formulations, memorialisation is a crucial aspect of global city-making that deserves to be critically and categorically examined through the lens of flânerie,” according to the abstract of Adebayo’s paper.

Those wishing to attend the event should first read the paper here.

Register here.

On Tuesday, 21 February, the 2023 Summer School on Good Governance in a Digital and Open Trading Environment will be kicking off at the University of Pretoria, Gauteng.

The Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA) will be joining the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (WU) Global Tax Policy Center and the African Tax Institute at the Summer School Programme. The event will run until 23 February under the theme, “Enhancing the Capacity of Civil Society Organisations in Efforts to Curb Illicit Financial Flows”.

TJNA is sponsoring journalists and communication specialists from network members in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and Cameroon to attend the event. Participants are expected to gain useful insights on developing narratives and policy perspectives about the fight against illicit financial flows, as well as the journey towards tax justice in Africa.  

“The media are a critical player in Africa’s quest for tax justice as they are powerful agents for mobilising people and pushing the narrative to stop the bleeding of Africa’s resources,” said Mukupa Nsendeluka, TJNA’s policy lead for tax and natural resource governance.

For more information, contact [email protected].

On Tuesday, 21 February, at 6pm, the fourth Annual Social Justice Lecture will be taking place at the Ou Hoofgebou in the Law Faculty at Stellenbosch University. 

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Justice Albie Sachs on the topic, “Social Justice and the Constitution: Is this the country we were fighting for?”.

“The Social Justice Annual Lecture is hosted by Prof Thuli Madonsela in her capacity as the director of the Centre for Social Justice at Stellenbosch University. By hosting the lecture, the centre aims to raise awareness about the constitutional commitment to advancing social justice and its related equality duty while deepening scholarship and jurisprudence on social justice,” according to the event description. 

Watch the live stream here.

On Wednesday, 22 February, members and supporters of the Stop EACOP [East African Crude Oil Pipeline] coalition will hold actions in over 10 countries on four continents, to call on Standard Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Standard Chartered banks to say no to the pipeline.

Mobilisations will be happening in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa.

“350.org and members of the #StopEACOP movement, joined by dozens of collectives and NGOs around the world, are ramping up the pressure on Standard Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Standard Chartered. They demand the withdrawal of these banks from EACOP, emphasising the project’s non-compliance with the Equator Principles, to which these banks are signatories,” according to the event description.

“Standard Bank (South Africa) and SMBC (Japan) are financial advisors to the project’s operators and are reportedly helping to arrange a multi-billion dollar loan to construct the EACOP. Standard Chartered (UK) has expressed interest in financing the project. To date, 24 banks have already refused to finance it.”

More information on the mobilisations is available here.

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On Wednesday, 22 February, at 2pm, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana will deliver the 2023 Budget Speech to the National Assembly at Cape Town City Hall.

The speech will provide details of spending, and revenue collection proposals to implement these plans. Godongwana will also introduce the Appropriation Bill and table the Division of Revenue Bill to Parliament, according to a Parliament press release.

The event will be broadcast live on Parliament’s DSTV Channel 408 and livestreamed on Parliament’s social media platforms, including Parliament’s YouTube Channel.

On Thursday, 23 February, the Constitutional Court of South Africa will hear oral arguments in the matter of Constance Mogale and Others v Speaker of the National Assembly and Others.

“The applicants want the Court to declare the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act 3 of 2019 (TKLA) invalid on procedural grounds. According to applicants, Parliament failed to conduct reasonable and meaningful public participation during the law-making process,” according to a press release from the Stop the Bantustans Bills Campaign and the Alliance for Rural Democracy.

According to the Stop the Bantustans Bills Campaign, the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act does recognise Khoi-San people, but the rest of the act gives new, oppressive powers to unelected chiefs.

“People should have a choice to attend a traditional court, but if Parliament’s version of the Traditional Courts Bill becomes law, chiefs would be able to punish people who challenge them through traditional court processes,” according to the campaign.

Read more about the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act and the legal challenge to it here. 

For media interviews contact Tshepo Fokane on [email protected] or 082 938 4103, or Thiyane Duda on [email protected] or 083 450 3265.

Friday, 24 February, marks one year since Russia invaded Ukraine.

The full-scale invasion has caused death and destruction across Ukraine, with thousands of Ukrainian civilians dead, tens of thousands of soldiers killed on both sides, and millions displaced, according to Al Jazeera.

No end to the conflict appears to be in sight, with both sides preparing large-scale offences as the war enters its second year.

The South African government has failed to take a stance condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Instead, the state has given the impression of continuing to support Russia through a series of decisions and events that have furthered South Africa-Russia relations. 

One such event is the ongoing joint maritime Exercise Mosi II, involving the South African, Russian and Chinese navies. The drill was set to begin on Friday, 17 February, and run for 10 days.

Read in Daily Maverick: “What could — and should — the Ukraine war cost South Africa?”

On Friday, 24 February, at 5pm and 7pm, the first public showing of the “We Stand for Freedom” dance performance will take place at the HCC Homecoming Centre on the corner of Buitenkant and Caledon streets in District Six, Cape Town.

The performance, organised by the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation together with the Ukrainian Association of South Africa and nonprofit Resilient Ukraine, marks the first year of the Russian war on Ukraine.

The 30-minute contemporary dance performance was created by Ukrainian choreographer Kateryna Aloshyna. It creates a space for live dialogue between the dancers and audience members, and unpacks the similarities between the Ukrainian and South African struggles for freedom, according to the event description. The audience can make choices that shape the outcome of the performance.

“The art speaks simultaneously to the heads and hearts of every human.  In the ‘We Stand for Freedom’ performance, the dialogue is between Ukrainians and South Africans, as well as between dancers and the audience. We hope that this dialogue will result in actions that defend human rights and the searching for and building of peace,” explained Aloshyna. 

Further showings of the performance will take place at 5pm and 7pm on 25 and 27 February.

Tickets are available here.

On Friday, 24 February, at 11am, the Institute for Economic Justice (IEJ) will be holding a launch for “The Cannabis Paper”, looking at inclusive development in the South African cannabis industry and assessing the challenges involved.

“The paper is the first of its kind in a sector with limited publicly available data. It makes significant contributions to debates about policy reform and industrial strategies for the South African cannabis industry,” according to the event description.

“The paper focuses on two key challenges: first, achieving forms of industrial growth and international competitiveness that create decent work; second, building an inclusive cannabis economy in which traditional cannabis growers and small enterprises can participate.”

Cheryl-Lyn Selman of the IEJ will be facilitating the event, while Andrew Bowman from the University of Edinburgh and Katrina Lehmann-Grube from the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies will be presenting. Other speakers include Tony Ehrenreich of Congress of South African Trade Unions; Garth Strachan of the Industrial Development Corporation of SA; and Ayanda Bam of Zageta and Friends of Hemp South Africa.

Register here.

On Friday at 2.30pm, Equal Education (EE) and the Centre for Law and Society will host the first Yoliswa Dwane Public Lecture at Oliver Tambo Moot Court on the 5th floor of the Kramer Law Building at the University of Cape Town.

The topic of the lecture will be, “Activism and the Law in the struggle for Social Justice”. The event is being held in memory of EE’s co-founder, Yoliswa Dwane, and forms part of the celebration marking 15 years of EE’s struggle for quality and equal education in South Africa. The keynote lecture will be delivered by Advocate Jason Brickhill.

“This lecture will pay tribute to the work and contribution of EE’s late co-founder Yoliswa Dwane to education justice in South Africa. Yoliswa very sadly passed away on Friday, 21 October 2022, from cancer,” according to the event description.

“[Dwane] dedicated her life to advancing social justice as a community activist. She led EE as the chairperson of our National Council (board) from 2012 to 2018, and was also the head of EE’s Policy, Communications and Research Department from 2008 to 2016,” according to the event description.

“Over this time, EE’s wide-ranging impact included: getting the government to adopt the landmark Norms and Standards for Public School Infrastructure; securing safe and reliable transport for thousands of learners in KwaZulu-Natal; and expanding EE’s work and membership across five  provinces.”

The event will be livestreamed on EE’s Facebook page.

Those wishing to attend in person should RSVP to [email protected] by Tuesday, 21 February.

On Saturday, 25 February, at 12pm (2pm SAST), the Stop the War coalition will be holding a national demonstration against the war in Ukraine. Participants will be marching to Trafalgar Square in London. 

“At the end of February, it will be one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. As with all wars, millions of ordinary people have suffered, vast numbers of refugees have been displaced and thousands of troops on both sides have been killed. Clearly the longer the war goes on the more suffering will occur,” according to the event description.

“Rather than sending more arms and weaponry to Ukraine, as the US and its allies are doing, ending the war will only be achieved through peace talks and diplomacy. In the absence of negotiation the danger of escalation, possibly nuclear escalation, is very real. This is why we demand peace talks now.”

Read more about the demonstration here. DM/MC