Book reviews

An Artificial Intelligence Approach to Legal Reasoning Anne Von Der Leith Gardner MIT Press 1987. £20.25

Design—The Modern Law and Practice Ian Morris and Barry Quest Butterworths. 1987. £45

Computers and the Law Richard Mawry and Keith Salmon BSP Professional Books,(Oxford, London, Edinburgh) 1988, £19.95

Television by Satellite—Legal Aspects Stephen de B. Bate (ed.) ESC Publishing Limited. 1987. £32.75.

Computer Software: Legal Protection in the United Kingdom Henry Carr E.S.C. Publishing Ltd 1987, £32.50.

Patents in Chemistry and Biotechnology Philip W Grubb Clarendon Press 1987. £12.50.

The International Handbook on Computer Crime Computer‐related Economic Crime and the Infringements of Privacy Ulrich Sieber John Wiley & Sons 1987. £24.95.

Computer Law: Theory and Practice Naomi Assia Advocate     

Voting void? Young South Africans,elections and the media

In May 2014, many of South Africa’s young citizens had the opportunity to vote in national elections for the first time. Youths who were born post-1994 (often referred to as the ‘Born Frees’) are the first generation of South Africans who live in a democratic country and hold no individual memory of life under apartheid. These young South Africans were born during a period of democracy, a time of transition and of great hope for the future. As a result of having been born outside the confines of apartheid racial segregation, they are expected to be racially integrated with their peers. The expectation which comes with the freedoms fought for by previous generations is that the youth will take up formal democratic practices, such as voting and engaging with parliament. However, during the recent national elections, the youth turnout revealed surprising differences amongst the 18–29-year age group. Young people aged 18–19 opted not to take up the right to vote – in fact, only 31 per cent of them had registered. This article interrogates the attitudes and actions of young South Africans within the political sphere, specifically by examining a group of young South Africans who are eligible to vote, as well as the role of the media in aiding or deterring voting engagement and perceptions. The central argument is that the local media fail to engage young people with content which advances their political identities. Despite high levels of media consumption, youths are engaging with formal politics as a result of pressure from family or due to socio-economic limitations, rather than a desire to add value to their citizenship.     

Reviews

Work, Culture, and Identity: Migrant Labourers in Mozambique and South Africa, c.1860–1910 by Patrick Harries. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg; Heinemann, Portsmouth NH; and James Currey, London. 1994. 328 pp. including photographs, maps and tables. R75.00 paperback.

African Workers and Colonial Racism: Mozambican Strategies and Struggles in Lourenc.0 Marques, 1877–1962 by Jeanne Marie Penvenne. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg; Heinemann, Portsmouth NH; and James Currey, London. 1995. 242 pp. including maps, halftones and tables. R86.00 paperback.

Historical Dictionary of Namibia by John J. Grotpeter. The Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey and London. No 57 in the African Historical Dictionaries series. 1994. xxvi plus 725 pp. including a chronology, map, appendices and bibliography. $89.50 hardback.

Out in the Cold: Academic Boycotts and the Isolation of South Africa by L.J. Haricombe and F.W. Lancaster. Information Resources Press, Arlington, Virginia. 1995. xiv plus 158 pp. including tables, bibliography and index. $29.50 hardback.

The Foreign Policy of Zimbabwe by Ulf Engel. Institute of African Affairs, Hamburg. 1994. vii plus 479 pp. including diagrams, tables, notes, bibliography and indices.

The Politics of Two Sudans: The South and the North 1821 ‐1969 by Deng D. Akol Ruay. The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden. 1994. 183 pp. £14.95.

Namibia's Liberation Struggle: The Two‐Edged Sword edited by Colin Leys and John S. Saul. James Curry, London and Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio. 1995. x plus 212 pp. including maps, notes and index. £12.95 paperback.

Namibia and External Resources: The Case of Swedish Development Assistance by Bertil Oden, Henning Melber, Tor Sellstrom and Chris Tapscott. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Research Report No. 96, Uppsala. 1994. 122 pp. including map, references and tables. £5.95 paperback.

Short‐Cut to Decay: The Case of the Sudan edited by Sharif Harir and Terje Tvedt. Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala. 1994. 275 pp. £19.95.

Divided Sisterhood: Race, Class and Gender in the South African Nursing Profession by Shula Marks. Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg (South Africa), Macmillan Press Ltd (Great Britain), and St. Martin's Press, Inc., (USA). 1994. xiii plus 306 pp. including notes, bibliography and index. R82.00 paperback.

Transition to Democracy in Nigeria (1985–1993) by Tunji Olagunju, Adele Jinadu and Sam Oyovbaire. Spectrum Books Ltd., Ibadan and London. 1993. 278 pp.     

Another hospital saga: the chronicles of Professor Kossmann and Bayside Health

There is almost a tradition in Australia for the suspect practices of hospitals to be exposed by whistleblowers rather than official governance or accreditation processes. The Bundaberg, King Edward, Canberra, Campbelltown and Camden hospitals have been investigated as a consequence of whistleblowing, but it seems the lessons learnt fail to travel beyond the subject institution. For five years, a number of senior surgeons at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne complained about the clinical and billing practices of their colleague, Professor Thomas Kossmann, head of the trauma unit. Amid intense media interest, The Alfred eventually convened a peer review panel to investigate their concerns. Around the same time, two surgeons made disclosures to Ombudsman Victoria. The Ombudsman subsequently released two reports expanding on the findings of the peer review panel. The situation at The Alfred was remarkable for the numerous and diverse issues raised and the involvement of several external agencies. This article provides an overview and analysis of the peer review panel and Ombudsman's reports and the outcomes of the referrals and recommendations.     

A fast ultrasound-assisted extraction procedure for trace elements determination in hair samples by ICP-MS for forensic analysis

An ultrasound-assisted extraction method is proposed for the determination of trace elements in hair samples by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for forensic investigation. Prior to analysis, 25 mg of hair samples were accurately weighed into (15 mL) conical tubes. Then, 2 mL of 20% HNO₃ is added to the samples, sonicated at 2 min (50 W, 100% amplitude), and then further diluted to 10 mL with Milli-Q water. Resulted diluted slurries are centrifuged and the analytes are directly determined in the supernatant. Calibrations against aqueous solutions were carried out with rhodium as internal standard. The method was successfully applied for the extraction of Al, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb, Tl, U, V and Zn with a method detection limit (3 s, n = 20) of 0.1, 0.4, 0.2, 0.09, 0.08, 0.04, 0.1, 2.9, 1.0, 0.9, 0.04, 0.05, 0.1 and 4.2 ng/g, respectively. Method accuracy is traceable to Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) 85 and 86 human hair from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additional validation data are provided based on the analysis of hair samples from the trace elements intercomparison program operated by the Institut National de Sante’ Publique du Quebec, Canada. The proposed method is very simple and can be applied for forensic purposes with the elimination of sample digestion step prior to analysis. Then, a considerable improvement in the sample throughput is archived with the use of the proposed method.     

‘Walking in two worlds’: A qualitative review of income management in Cape York

The Cape York Welfare Reform (CYWR) initiative aims to reduce ‘passive dependence’ on welfare and restore ‘positive social norms’ to revitalise cultural and social networks and support economic engagement in Indigenous communities in the Cape York Region of Australia. Critics of the initiative and, in particular, its income management (IM) policies have associated it with a broader neoliberal reform agenda that delineates social ‘problems’ from their historical and structural context. This paper discusses key qualitative findings from a strategic review of CYWR, paying particular attention to the ways in which Cape York IM (CYIM) straddles both Indigenous and settler social norms, while perpetuating neoliberal conceptualisations of welfare ‘dependency’. We situate these findings within the existing literature on Australia's other IM models and also consider them in relation to subsequent government responses to the review and associated policies. We argue that CYIM represents a unique initiative, the subtle nuances of which have been largely ignored or misunderstood by critics. Further, we conclude that any extension or revision of this initiative should be considered with respect to deep and wide-ranging consultation of the Indigenous communities subject to CYWR. However, such consultation has not been the standard practice in Australian contexts.     

WorkChoices and Howard's Defeat

This article seeks to perform two tasks. It seeks to first detail the changes to the industrial relations system entailed in WorkChoices (set against the background of previous Howard government policies in this field), analyse the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU's) campaign against it and the Australian Labor Party's (ALP's) industrial relations policy in response to it, and belated changes to WorkChoices. Second, it seeks to examine the extent to which WorkChoices (and the industrial relations issue) was decisive in Howard's defeat. This will be done by using Newspoll surveys to plot the revival of ALP electoral support against salient events leading up to the election, drawing upon early post election assessments and existing studies, and also examining the results of the Australian Election Study 2007 to see whether this new evidence confirms the importance of industrial relations in the election outcome.