UKZN’s Law Academics make the top finalists list of first time presenters at Law Conference

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School of Law Academics, Mr Norman Mpya and Mr Lee Swales excelled at the Society of Law Teachers of Southern Africa Conference recently held at Varsity College as they made it to the top four finalists to compete for the First Presenters’ Prize out of 73 presenters.

The Conference gives South African Legal Education Specialists access to both emerging and established Law Academics providing an opportunity to exchange ideas and research findings.

Mpya who presented a paper titled: “The Application of John Ruggie‘s Guiding Principles in the Tricky Business of Human Rights: The Assessment of "Walmart Stores Inc and Massmart Holdings Ltd Case" which deals with the transcendence of human rights into the domain of competition law whilst addressing issues of mergers and acquisitions as they relate to economic development said he has learnt a lot from this experience.

‘For me the conference has been something I have been waiting for, for a year. Hence, I tried my level best to prepare myself and with the help of very supportive colleagues I managed to make the top four! I have learned a lot from all three plenary sessions and more especially about academic presentations. I will definitely improve on my presentation skills and academic writing as I am currently busy with my doctorate on Multinational Corporations and Human Rights,’ he said.

For Swales, the experience has fuelled his research drive as he is currently working on publishing the paper he presented at the conference which is on service of legal process via Facebook. He is also working on publishing a paper on spam e-mail and the new Protection of Personal Information Act and will be presenting a paper on unlawful debt collection which deals with the most vulnerable of our society who are preyed on by unethical attorneys and debt collectors using emolument attachment orders at Probono.org at the end of the month.

‘It was a wonderful experience, particularly being my first conference.  The speakers were engaging and insightful and the conference and evening functions were well run and managed. The presentation on unlawful debt collections is inspired by the a recent High Court judgment by the Cape High Court in which certain provisions of the Magistrates Court Act were declared unconstitutional. As I am supervising a masters student, Ms Abongile Swana in this area I have become quite involved in the latest developments here,’ said Swales.

Thandiwe Jumo