In this article Professor Gerard Kamga examines the resurgence of military coups in Africa since 2020, particularly in the Sahel region and Gabon. He reflects on Edward Luttwak’s Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook, analyzing how his typology—revolutions, civil wars, and pronunciamientos—applies to recent events. and questions how accurately Luttwak’s theory captures Africa’s evolving political crises.

In this post, Marthinus van Staden and Michele van Eck highlight a significant oversight in South Africa’s labour law framework, which allows employers to unilaterally alter working conditions without employees' explicit consent. This gap disproportionately affects vulnerable groups, who struggle to navigate contracts laden with complex legal jargon. The authors advocate for labour law reforms mandating written employment contracts and the use of plain language in all employment-related documentation.

In this post, Ester Stefanelli provides a detailed account of Mozambique's recent elections as well as the events that led to subsequent protests and disputes over the results. She argues that the Mozambican crisis underscores the limitations of formal elections, which can reflect incomplete constitutional transitions and may even hinder the process of democratic consolidation.

The African Law Matters blog is pleased to announce that our 2024 Year End Anthology is now available online. This showcases the blog’s work and the editors’ selected publications from 2024 and can be accessed directly from this blog post.

In this post, Justin critiques the Constitutional Court’s decision in Damons, which narrowly interpreted the duty of reasonable accommodation under the Employment Equity Act. He argues that the ruling weakens protections for persons with disabilities by limiting accommodation to meeting existing job requirements rather than transforming workplaces for inclusion. Justin advocates for a substantive equality approach, emphasizing that reasonable accommodation should not just integrate disabled employees but also reshape work environments to be more inclusive and accessible.