During a live-stream event on 30 August 2021, three Faculty of Law (UP Law) alumnae from the University of Pretoria (UP), Sohela Surajpal, Mankhuwe Letsoalo and Zenia Pero officially received their respective Yunus Mahomed Public Interest Awards for Law, Business and Ethics (hereinafter referred to as YM Awards).

Professor Ntombizozuko ‘Zozo’ Dyani-Mhango, Head of the Department of Public Law in UP Law, and programme director of the event, introduced the audience to the online dignitaries, i.e. the founder of the YM Award, Justice Dhaya Pillay, Dean Professor Elsabe Schoeman, Deputy Dean Professor Charles Maimela, and the three winners.

She provided an overview of Justice Pillay’s education and experience, currently an Acting Justice in the Constitutional Court of South Africa for the first two terms of 2021, and the driving force behind the YM Awards since 2013.  Dyani-Mhango also mentioned that Justice Pillay is an Extraordinary Professor in the Free State Centre for Human Rights at the University of the Free State (UFS) Faculty of Law. 

Justice Pillay said that the idea of this project was the brainchild of her friends Charm and Maggie Govender, and that is how she founded the YM Awards, supported by Kagiso Capital and Kagiso Trust.  She referred to Mahomed’s involvement and struggle for democracy.  She further said that the objective of the YM Awards was to galvanise transformation and advancing human rights in a very concrete way.  She also referred to the participating universities other than UP, i.e. the University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Cape Town and UFS.

Justice Pillay, who was the life partner of Yunus Mahomed, provided a brief history of the involvement of Yunus Mahomed in the pre-democratic era of South Africa.  She said it was his desire to create a better South Africa for especially the poor and marginalised citizens in South Africa during the Apartheid years. He mobilised households to recognize their hardships, to articulate same, and advance themselves, rather than being told, led or misled, with the result that communities were able to claim their rights as beneficiaries of our Constitution.

She further stated that the purpose of this Competition was to force students to think, articulate, communicate and write progressively with precision and mentioned the positive evolution of articles since the project unfolded in 2013.  She thanked UP Law, and in particular Dean Elsabe Schoeman, former Dean Professor André Boraine for his involvement in previous years, and Dyani-Mhango who took over from Professor André Boraine this year.

She briefly referred to previous winners of the award, such as last year’s winner, UP Law’s Nicholas Herd.  She also mentioned that a previous winner of the YM Award, Musa Kikia, a human rights lawyer, successfully applied for the Chief Justice of Zimbabwe to step down.  She also mentioned a number of previous winners who were actively involved in constitutional transformation.

Justice Pillay further stated that she has adopted Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the oppressed as her mantra, which is considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy, and proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student, and society, the third most cited book in social sciences.

Next, the three institutional winners had the opportunity to tell the audience about their submissions and lives.  Sohela Surajpal is currently a law clerk to Justice MR Madlanga at the Constitutional Court, where, according to her, she is gaining so much knowledge and insight of the law and transformation.  She won the Institutional Award for a Peer-reviewed article titled: ‘Dismantling the status quo: prohibiting unfair discrimination on the grounds of poverty under capitalism’ published in (2020) 14(2) Pretoria Student Law Review (PSLR) 256.  The PSLR is a student-driven initiative that provides an interactive forum for students to discuss topical legal matters.

According to Surajpal, the first part of her paper discusses the approach of the South African courts to socio-economic rights, arguing that it has resulted in limited progress in alleviating poverty.’  In her view, ‘The Equality Court’s incorporation of equality law into socio-economic enquiries in Social Justice Coalition v Minister of Police could strengthen the case of claimants and override certain factors that cause the courts to defer to the executive, thus compelling the State to provide more immediate relief.

This section also attempts to apply the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of poverty to commercial entities. By understanding discrimination as the denial of advantages or opportunities, the argument that the economy and private companies depend on discriminating against the poor to function is advanced.

The second part of the paper discusses the requirement that discrimination be unfair in order to be prohibited. It assesses the likelihood of courts finding that budgetary constraints and profit incentives are legitimate purposes served by discrimination on the grounds of poverty.

Finally, the last part of this paper discusses whether antidiscrimination law is an appropriate tool for the eradication of poverty. Several criticisms of transformative constitutionalism, human rights discourse and anti-discrimination law are engaged with to show that anti-discrimination law, as it currently exists, will at most target incidents of poverty-based discrimination using moderate forms of relief that allow for the continuance of an oppressive capitalist order rather than creating systemic change. The courts will have to make radical decisions, which depart from conservative South African legal culture if the decision in Social Justice Coalition v Minister of Police is to have far-reaching impact.

Surajpal explained that in her view class and poverty create a huge dividing line in South Africa, and that equitable deployment of resources in South Africa can change this. She stated that South Africa needs to prohibit unfair discrimination on grounds of poverty, and concluded by asking ‘Are we content to live in a capitalist state?’

She also expressed her appreciation to UP Law, and the electives presented by UP Law, and for staff members’ care and support.  She also stated that the PSLR was a great platform to publish the views of students.  She also thanked Kagiso Capital and the YM Trust for the award, and said that more thinking and engaging on topics like these were required.

In their combined article, ‘Historically white universities and the white gaze: critical reflections on the decolonisation of the LLB Curriculum1’, institutional first-prize winners Letsoalo (UFS) and Pero (UP Law) critically reflect on the institutional landscape of historically white universities. The authors employ the term ‘white gaze’ to highlight how historically white universities respond to calls for decolonisation, often substituting this call with transformation. The purpose of this article is to re-contextualise the need for decolonisation at historically white universities.

Letsoalo, currently an LLM-student at UFS, said that the idea for the paper arose in her final LLB-year in 2019 when former Dean Professor André Boraine requested her to represent and present a paper on behalf of UP at a South Africa Law Deans Association (SALDA) meeting at the University of Venda. She explained that at the event’s conclusory dinner a discussion on the topic followed, which gave rise to her using her presentation as a platform for the article.  She thanked Professor Tshepo Madlingozi, then in the Department of Jurisprudence at UP Law, Professor Annette Lansink (former Dean of the University of Venda), the late Professor Christo Heyns, Profesor Karin van Marle), her current LLM supervisor at UFS, and Professor Danie Brand, the director of and a professor in the Free State Centre for Human Rights at UFS.  She concluded by saying that the late Fela Kuti’s ‘Teacher don’t teach me nonsense’ from 1986 and his fight for human dignity was now more relevant than ever.

Zenia Pero explained that she joined the Johannesburg Society of Advocates as a pupil after obtaining her BA Law LLB LLM from UP.  She further said that Mankhuwe co-opted her to compile an article on this topic and explained the distinct difference between transformation and decolonisation.  She also referred to an inspiring quote on the wall of the Department of Jurisprudence:  ‘Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.’

Dyani-Mahango gave credit to the Department of Jurisprudence for fostering and encouraging the free expression of ideas among UP Law students and their employees. 

Dean Professor Elsabe Schoeman gave a brief introduction of Dyani-Mhango, and expressed her appreciation towards Dyani-Mhango for taking charge of this competition at UP Law this year and doing justice to this initiave.  She also thanked Professor Magnus Killander, Ilana le Roux and Primrose Kurasha who worked on the PSLR and who vetted the articles.  She said that it was very appropriate to have three women winners in Women’s Month.  She congratulated the alumnae for tackling controversial topics on relevant issues, for thinking on a higher level with thoughtful and insightful outcomes, and agreed with Surajpal that poverty was a scourge in our community.  She also briefly referred to the recent relaunch of the UP curriculum transformation process under guidance of Maimela and said that ‘We need young voices to speak, through writing and debating, and thank you to the winners for lighting those transformation fires and flames.’

Justice Pillay referred to the winners as ‘Our feature leaders in thought, reading and writing.  We are counting on you to make the future of this country a bright one!’

Deputy Dean Professor Charles Maimela congratulated the winners, saying that at first they were his students, now his colleagues.  He said students and graduates must aim to engage robustly in topical issues bringing about change, and be like Yunus Mahomed, always striving for transformation.  He also reiterated that contributions from students and graduates were vital in Teaching and Learning and transformation efforts and he expressed the hope that he can recruit these alumnae to return to UP Law in due course.

In conclusion, Justice Pillay conveyed appreciation to Rose Mahlophe from Kagiso Capital and Kagiso Trust for her administration and to Kagiso Capital and Kagiso Trust for providing the prize money, and for hosting this project on their website.

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Since winning the award, Letsoalo has donated her prize money by supplying feminine products to Ubunto Box to contribute to the alleviation of period poverty at universities.   -  Editor