The constitutional and political negotiations in South Africa have reached an advanced stage and elections for a government of national unity might take place within the next twelve months. For the millions of South Africans who have waited, fought, sacrificed and suffered the end appears to be in sight. While they will have every right to celebrate the results of their hard-fought battles to achieve a democratic and just society, they equally have a solemn duty to ensure that they proceed to build the future on a solid base, not only to guarantee the protection of democracy and justice but more importantly to ensure that no other South African is ever again the victim of the types of human rights abuses that have for the past decades become synonymous with the country. There will only be one opportunity to rebuild the nation. If it fails it will be a great disservice to South Africa's countrymen and women and to the generations that will follow. Even as a South African one has difficulty in fully comprehending the enormity of the social and human destruction caused in the name of apartheid. It has brutalized and dispossessed its people; robbed children of their youth and their innocence; widowed and orphaned thousands and destroyed the dreams and hopes of decent men and women. The 18 million people gaoled in terms of the pass laws and the 15.5 million people uprooted by forced removals bear testimony to the brutality and savagery with which apartheid was applied. The legacy of those policies will remain for many years to come.

This article inquires critically into the different modes of acquisition of oil rights in Nigeria by international oil companies (IOCs) under contractual joint ventures. These contractual joint ventures are either production sharing or service contracts.

The political and economic problems of language policy in modern Africa have continued as a reminder of the unforgettable historical fact of European colonialism. Today there are two major regions of Africa known as Anglophone and Francophone Africa. Much as many African leaders would have wished to discard the language of the former colonial power and substitute an indigenous language, this has proved problematic because in many cases there is not a single widely-spoken local language. In some cases any attempt to raise the status of one indigenous language into a national language would have provoked wasteful inter-ethnic conflict.

This article examines the use of the law by the state to achieve its aim of social justice. It focuses on how, through a series of laws, the state has endeavoured to regulate private sector residential rents at the lower end of the market (up to a ceiling of 1,000.00 cedis) and the occupation of residential accommodation. An analysis is thus given of the nature of the laws in question as well as the institutions and organs of the state that were either set up, or had the scope of their powers broadened, in pursuance of the state's objectives.

On 31 December, 1981 a military junta, the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) assumed power in Ghana. It had as one of the cornerstones of its political agenda the establishment of “true democracy” for all Ghanaians who, according to the new rulers, had been denied this right by previous civilian and military regimes. As a consequence, the PNDC enacted Law 42 which encapsulated in part the Directive Principles of State Policy (hereinafter the Directive Principles).

This article examines some aspects of the Company and Allied Matters Decree, 1990 with a view to showing how they affect business operations and business people. It seeks to show what positive reforms have been introduced by the Decree, in a bid to encourage business operations in Nigeria. In doing that the article will look at the formalities for the incorporation of business concerns (especially companies) and also some of the substantive rules which govern the operation of such companies.

The aspects of child evidence addressed by this article relate first to the age of competence, that is, in what circumstances a court should apply the provisions of sections 154(1) and 182(1) of the Evidence Act to a witness; and secondly, what consequences attach to a wrongful application, or non-application, of these provisions in any proceedings before a court.

“We were trying to kill each other; that's what the war was about. What I am concerned with now is that my public statements should be believed when I say that I have drawn a line through the past.” (Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, on retaining the head of Rhodesian intelligence in charge of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization).

“Nothing the police are doing now is new. The police have learned all their bad habits from the Rhodesian police. The beatings, the electric shock …” (former Rhodesian police officer).

The gazetting of the Land Acquisition Bill on 24 January, 1992 unleashed what has been described as the fiercest debate ever known in the history of Zimbabwe. However, the issue of land reform had been back on the political agenda ever since the expiry of the Lancaster House Constitution on 18 April, 1990, and pressures from a variety of quarters, both internal and external, had been brought to bear on the government during the intervening period. In particular, its adoption in 1990 of a document declaring National Land Policy had generated intense controversy. In accordance with the principles set out in that document the government has sought to facilitate the acquisition of land for resettlement purposes, first by amending section 16 of the Lancaster House Constitution and subsequently by enacting the Land Acquisition Act. In formulating its policy the government has recognized both the need to redress inequalities in land distribution and the need to take into account current national and international socio-economic realities. The result is a compromise.

For this exercise, three of the many new decisions of Nigerian courts on the interpretation of some provisions of the Nigerian Land Use Act have been chosen. Two of the decisions were delivered by the Supreme Court of Nigeria while one was by a Court of Appeal in Nigeria.