JJS 2005 Volume 30 Issue 2

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  • ItemOpen Access
    Wapenbeheer: die posisie van die wapeneienaar in Suid-Afrika
    (Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, 2005) De Klerk, H. M.; Jansen, R-M.
    English: The position of the gun-owner was changed drastically when the Firearms Control Act60 of 2000 took effect on 1 July 2004. This Act repealed the Arms and Ammunition Act75 of 1969; the latter Act had regulated the possession of arms and ammunition since 1972. The Firearms Control Actis strict and detailed, and was amended a number of times by ministerial regulations before it came into force. It is obvious that an arms license is not easily obtainable, and gun-owners are concerned about these strict provisions. This article deals, first, with the position of the gun-owner in terms of the Arms and Ammunition Actand possible reasons for repealing this Act are indicated; secondly, the position of the gun-owner under the Firearms Control Actis scrutinised. Both the benefits and disadvantages of the new legislation are examined and recommendations are made.
  • ItemOpen Access
    Huber, natural law and the reformational basis of the iurisprudentia universalis
    (Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, 2005-12) Raath, A. W. G.; Henning, J. J.
    English: Ulrich Huber's work, De Jure Civitatis, contains the first serious effort to apply the Reformational perspectives on natural law to the field of Public Law. Not only did he integrate the perspectives on natural law with his views on Public Law generally, but he used the idea of natural law as the basis for jurisprudence as a whole (iurisprudentia universalis). In his opposition to the natural law theories of Bodin, Hobbes and Pufendorf, Huber maintained the perspective that law and justice cannot be seen as the products of utility or be determined simply by their usefulness. To Huber the principles of good and bad, lawful and unlawful, just and unjust, are based on immutable principles superceding human manipulation. For these reasons, Huber emphasises the fact that natural law is not the product of man's reason, but is based on the eternal will of God. However, man is able, with his reason, to determine the will of God from its revelation in God's moral law. In effect, then, God's eternal law is the fundamental source of natural law. As such the validity of natural law principles are not subject to an agreement among men, or to the principles of civil law, but they precede the state and the authority of government. Not only do these precepts of natural law apply as normative provisions to all elements of Public Law, but also to the rights of man (among others to life and property) irrespective of the nature and composition of the state. Huber's response to Hobbes's natural law theory in particular, highlights the importance of establishing the principles of law and justice not susceptible to the manipulation of political authorities and government authority. As such Huber's theory of natural law was not only an important contribution in his own time, but he postulated an alternative which may serve as an essential corrective in legal systems where the formal notion of the state subject to law, does not penetrate to the level of informing the material idea of the law state in a fundamental sense.