1st Edition
Gender, Judging and the Courts in Africa Selected Studies
Women judges are playing increasingly prominent roles in many African judiciaries, yet there remains very little comparative research on the subject. Drawing on extensive cross-national data and theoretical and empirical analysis, this book provides a timely and broad-ranging assessment of gender and judging in African judiciaries.
Employing different theoretical approaches, the book investigates how women have fared within domestic African judiciaries as both actors and litigants. It explores how women negotiate multiple hierarchies to access the judiciary, and how gender-related issues are handled in courts. The chapters in the book provide policy, theoretical and practical prescriptions to the challenges identified, and offer recommendations for the future directions of gender and judging in the post-COVID-19 era, including the role of technology, artificial intelligence, social media, and institutional transformations that can help promote women’s rights.
Bringing together specific cases from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, and South Africa and regional bodies such as ECOWAS and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and covering a broad range of thematic reflections, this book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of African law, judicial politics, judicial training, and gender studies. It will also be useful to bilateral and multilateral donor institutions financing gender-sensitive judicial reform programs, particularly in Africa.
The Open Access version of this book, available at
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9780429327865/gender-judging-courts-africa-jarpa-dawuni, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
Acknowledgments
List of contributors
Note from Chief Justice of Tanzania
Foreword
1. Introduction: Gender and judging across Africa: A case of old wine in new skins or new wine in old skins?
J. JARPA DAWUNI, PHD
PART I: Women and gender-related jurisprudence in the courts
2. An analysis of gender equality jurisprudence by Kenyan courts since the enactment of the 2010 constitution
NANCY BARAZA, PHD
3. To win both the battle and the war: Judicial determination of property rights of spouses in Ghana
MAAME YAA MENSA-BONSU AND MAAME A.S. MENSA-BONSU
4. "Judging" lesbians: Prospects for advancing lesbian rights protection through the courts in Nigeria
PEDI OBANI, PHD
PART II: Emerging gender issues in the courts
5. Femicide and judging: Social media as an alternative online court in Kenya
STEPHEN MUTHOKA MUTIE, PHD
6. Judging beyond gender: Maternal and infant mortality as an emerging gender-related issue in Ugandan courts
W. NAIGAGA KYOBIIKA
7. Revenge pornography as a form of sexual and gender-based violence in Ghana: Emerging judicial issues
MAAME EFUA ADDADZI-KOOM
8. Litigating gender discrimination cases before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights
OSAI OJIGHO
PART III: Judicial appointments and gender representation in regional bodies and national courts
9. The feminine face of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
REINE ALAPINI-GANSOU
10. Pursuing gender equality through the courts: The role of South Africa’s women judges
PENELOPE ANDREWS
11. One sauce for the goose, another for the gander: Zambian women judges and perceptions of illegitimacy
TABETH MASENGU, PHD
PART IV: Judicial training and gender
12. Unlocking gender inequality through judicial training: Insights from Tanzania
JULIANA MASABO, PHD
13. Gender awareness training in Judicial Training Institutes in Kenya and Uganda
NIGHTINGALE RUKUBA-NGAIZA, PHD
PART V: COVID-19 pandemic and gender-related judicial issues
14. The COVID-19 pandemic, courts, and the justice system
MUNA NDULO, DPHIL
15. Sexual and gender-based violence in Uganda during the COVID19 pandemic: New and old lessons for the criminal justice system
LILLIAN TIBATEMWA-EKIRIKUBINZA, PHD
Biography
J. Jarpa Dawuni is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University, United States and the Founding Director of the Howard University Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership. She is the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit organization, the Institute for African Women in Law (IAWL).
"Judges play critical roles as custodians of law and justice. The judicial oath places a duty on judges to apply the law equally, and without fear or favor. The generally held view on gender and judging however, indicate that the law may not always be applied fairly in matters relating to women and other minorities. This book comes at a time when the world is reawakening to discussions on the rights of women, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The chapters provide theoretical and practical analyses and entry points for expanding our understanding of how judges apply the law and the potential for judicial interpretation to either promote women’s rights or diminish them. This book is a must-read for judicial officers, gender advocates, experts interested in judicial policy, judicial training, and judicial institutional development. It touches on issues at the intersection of gender, law, and development across Africa."
Justice Georgina Theodora Wood (Rtd) (SOG, LLD (honoris causa), Former Chief Justice of the Republic of Ghana
"A rich, timely, thoughtful, lively and diverse compendium of papers examining the multiplicity of questions at the core of constitutional rights and freedoms across the African continent today. The book excellently captures the main issues raised at the conference in Arusha which illuminated the gaps in law and practice towards full and meaningful achievement of women’s rights. It highlights the slow but steady advances being made in the gender awareness of judges in Africa, while calling to action the need for more gender-sensitive training for judicial officers."
Justice Albie Sachs (Rtd.), Constitutional Court of South Africa
