Browsing by Subject "maintenance"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Open Access
    Bwanya v Master: A Softening of the Doctrine of Precedent
    (2024) Osman, Fatima
    Bwanya v Master of the High Court [2021] ZACC 51, 2022 (4) BCLR 410 (CC), 2022 (3) SA 250 (CC) provided the Constitutional Court with the opportunity to reconsider its previous judgment of Volks v Robinson [2005] ZACC 2, 2005 (5) BCLR 446 (CC) and its implications for the inheritance rights of opposite-sex partners. The Court in Bwanya, in a much-anticipated decision, declared the Intestate Succession Act 81 of 1987 and the Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act 27 of 1990 unconstitutional to the extent that the legislation did not provide for partners in a permanent life partnership in which the partners have undertaken reciprocal duties of support. The article argues that while Bwanya may be distinguishable from Volks, it would be an artificial—rather than meaningful—distinction that seeks to avoid a confrontation with Volks. The Bwanya and Volks cases raise the same substantive issue, being the rights of unmarried partners, and the Court should be applauded for confronting the issue directly rather than skirting the issue through superficial distinctions. Unfortunately, the Court’s approach in confronting and departing from Volks without declaring the previous judgment wrong is confusing and unconvincing. The judgment appears to represent a softening of the doctrine of stare decisis and a shift in the Court’s approach regarding the rights of unmarried parties, as legislative intervention in this area is not forthcoming.
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    Open Access
    Has the ‘best interests of the child' principle been applied to children's rights in Botswana on maintenance, custody and adoption matters?
    (2025) Mokibe, Linah; Lutchman, Salona
    Botswana has a pluralistic legal system. Thus customary law operates parallel to the Constitution, the common law as well as statute laws. Children in Botswana are subject to all these laws and systems. At international level, Botswana has acceded to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and has ratified several other international and regional human rights instruments. The UNCRC is an international treaty which lays down the social, economic, political, civil, health and cultural rights of all children. It is the basic human rights treaty which recognizes that children are also equal as human beings. Despite Botswana's accession to the UNCRC, which provides that the ‘best interests of the child' shall be the paramount consideration in all decisions made regarding a child, there is still a lack in the application of this principle when decisions relating to children are made on maintenance, custody and adoption. This study therefore interrogates whether there is an indication that the best interests of the child principle has been applied on children's rights in Botswana when decisions are made on maintenance, custody and adoption of children.
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    Open Access
    Use of smartphones by romantic partners to maintain their relationships
    (2020) Mhora, Glitter; Chigona, Wallace
    PROBLEM STATEMENT: The way we interact in our relationships is continuously changing as technology advances. Technology can be used to enhance or destroy relationships depending on how people manage their use within relationships. Human relationships especially romantic ones are essential as they have an impact on a person's emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Most of the research to date has focused on the quantitative measurement of the advantages and disadvantages of technology as well as on the problematic use of smartphones. Little research has been done on the effect of smartphones on romantic relationship maintenance. THE PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH: The objective of this research was to find out how individuals in romantic relationships were using their smartphones to maintain their relationships. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY: This research followed an interpretivist qualitative approach. Data was collected firstly through a discussion on Twitter under the hashtag #“RomanticMaintenancewithSmartphones”. This was then followed by fourteen in-depth semi-structured interviews which were done with individuals who were in romantic relationships or had been in a romantic relationship less than six months ago. A combination of purposive, snowballing and convenience sampling techniques were used. The affordance theory was used as a theoretical framework for the research and the data was analysed using thematic analysis. FINDINGS: The study identified individual and interactional affordances of smartphones for romantic relationship maintenances. Relationship thinking, breaking away from reality and displaying intimacy and affection where the individual affordances identified in the study. The interactive affordances were showing support and encouragement, planning and organising, openness for conflict management and displaying transparency. Personal values and culture were seen to have an impact on which affordances of smartphones a person utilised. In addition to maintaining the relationship positively, there were also negative outcomes of the actualization of the affordances of smartphones such as unrealistic expectations created on partners and partner abstraction.