Tutorial Letter 101 - 2023 - 3 - B
Tutorial Letter 101 - 2023 - 3 - B
Law of Persons
PVL1501
Semesters 1 and 2
BARCODE
CONTENTS
Page
1 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 4
2 WELCOME TO THE LAW OF PERSONS MODULE…………………………………………………. 5
12 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY......................................................................................................... 16
12.1 Plagiarism ................................................................................................................................... 16
12.2 Cheating ..................................................................................................................................... 16
12.3 For more information about plagiarism, follow the link below:...................................................... 16
12.4 Academic and Administrative matters ......................................................................................... 16
12.4.1 Academic Matters ....................................................................................................................... 16
12.4.2 Administrative Matters................................................................................................................. 16
13 STUDENTS LIVING WITH DISABILITIES .................................................................................. 17
14 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ........................................................................................ 17
15 IN CLOSING ............................................................................................................................... 17
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Dear Student
1 INTRODUCTION
Teaching and learning in an ODeL context involve multiple modes of delivery ranging from blended
learning to fully online. As a default position, all post graduate programmes are offered fully online
with no printed study materials, while undergraduate programmes are offered in a blended mode of
delivery where printed study materials are augmented with online teaching and learning via the
learner management system – myUnisa. In some instances, undergraduate programmes are offered
fully online as well.
Furthermore, our programmes are aligned with the vision, mission and values of the University.
Unisa's commitment to serve humanity and shape futures combined with a clear appreciation of our
location on the African continent, Unisa's graduates have distinctive graduate qualities which include
• independent, resilient, responsible and caring citizens who are able to fulfil and serve in
multiple roles in their immediate and future local, national and global communities
• having a critical understanding of their location on the African continent with its histories,
challenges and potential in relation to globally diverse contexts
• the ability to critically analyse and evaluate the credibility and usefulness of information and
data from multiple sources in a globalised world with its ever-increasing information and data
flows and competing worldviews
• how to apply their discipline-specific knowledges competently, ethically and creatively to
solve real-life problems
• an awareness of their own learning and developmental needs and future potential
Whether a module is offered either as blended (meaning that we use a combination of printed and
online material to engage with you) or online (all information is available via the internet), we use
myUnisa as our virtual campus. This is an online system that is used to administer, document and
deliver educational material to you and support engagement with you. Look out for information from
your lecturer, as well as other Unisa platforms, to determine how to access the virtual myUnisa
module site. Information on the tools that will be available to engage with the lecturer and fellow
students to support your learning will also be communicated via various platforms.
You are encouraged to log into the module site on myUnisa regularly.
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The purpose of this module is for students to gain knowledge, skills and attitudes to analyse and
solve well-defined problems relating to the law of persons (including the beginning and end of legal
personality, and factors that affect a person’s status) in South Africa. The module incorporates
aspects of transformative constitutionalism, Ubuntu, social responsibility, graduateness and
humanisation within the context of the law of persons.
3.2 Outcomes
A range of tasks in study guides and/or tutorial letters, assignments, and examinations will show
that students have achieved the outcomes.
Outcome 1:
Demonstrate a clear understanding of the legal principles of the South African law of persons,
including the beginning and end of legal personality and factors that affect a person’s status.
Assessment criteria:
Legal problems and issues relating to the law of persons are identified in real or simulated fact
scenarios.
Terms, rules, concepts, established principles and theories related to the law of persons are
understood.
Students demonstrate an awareness of the value of the law of persons in the field of private law.
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Outcome 2:
Formulate legal arguments and apply their knowledge to practical, well-defined problems relating to
the law of persons.
Assessment criteria:
Well-defined problems relating to the law of persons are solved using correct procedures and
appropriate evidence.
Legal text is skilfully used to substantiate arguments and support solutions for specific law of persons
issues.
4 CURRICULUM TRANSFORMATION
Unisa has implemented a transformation charter, in terms of which the university has placed curriculum
transformation high on the teaching and learning agenda. Curriculum transformation includes student-centred
scholarship, the pedagogical renewal of teaching and assessment practices, the scholarship of teaching and
learning, and the infusion of African epistemologies and philosophies. All of these will be phased in at both
programme and module levels, and as a result of this you will notice a marked change in the teaching and
learning strategy implemented by Unisa, together with the way in which the content is conceptualised in your
modules. We encourage you to embrace these changes during your studies at Unisa in a responsive way
within the framework of transformation.
• New applicants who are enquiring about information for the purpose of applying for
admission.
• New applicants who do not yet have a myLife e-mail account, because they have been
admitted but not yet registered.
• Where a student requires assistance in resolving myLife e-mail account access
problems.
Please be aware that any personal information you publish on public platforms, such as social media
platforms and WhatsApp groups, is not covered by the provisions of Protection of Personal
Information Act 4 of 2013. Any personal information published in the public domain is not considered
private and can, therefore be accessed by external parties with access to such platforms.
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Prof JM Kruger
Cas van Vuuren 6-10
Telephone number: 012 429-8502
Email: [email protected]
All queries that are not of a purely administrative nature but are about the content of this module
should be directed to us. You may contact us by e-mail, telephone or on myUnisa. Please have your
study material and student number with you when you contact us.
➢ Telephone numbers are included above, and you may phone us at these numbers. Our
telephone system records missed calls. If we are not available to take your call, we shall
attempt to phone you back as soon as possible.
Always have your student number handy when you call the University.
6.2 Department
The Department of Private Law is situated in the Cas van Vuuren building on the 6 th floor.
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6.4 University
To contact the university, please dial 080 000 1870. Remember to keep your student number at
hand when contacting the university. The Unisa Student Communication Service Centre will be open
weekdays from 08:00 – 16:00 (South African Standard Time).
Please send all emails from your myLife email account. If you send an e-mail directly to a Unisa
e-mail address, insert your student number in the subject line to ensure the correct routing to an
advisor for processing. Please check the list carefully and send an enquiry to one e-mail
address only. This will ensure that there is no confusion as to who must respond, thereby
preventing unnecessary delays in the response or the email portrayed as spam. Students should
only forward enquiries to the Registrar and Deputy Registrar in instances where those enquiries
could not be resolved at other levels.
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Contact addresses of the various administrative departments appear on the Unisa website:
http://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/corporate/default/Contact-us/Student-enquiries.
Please include your student number in all correspondence with the university.
7 RESOURCES
7.1 Prescribed book
Please do not attempt to study this module without the prescribed textbook. You will not gain
sufficient knowledge by studying from the study guide and tutorial letters only. You cannot
expect to be successful if you do not have the latest edition of the textbook. It is essential that you
purchase it.
Your prescribed textbook for this module for this semester is:
• Heaton J The South African Law of Persons 6 ed (2021) LexisNexis Durban (hereinafter
“Heaton”)
Please refer to the list of official booksellers and their addresses in the Study @ Unisa brochure. If
you have any difficulty obtaining books from these booksellers, please contact the Prescribed Book
Section as soon as possible at telephone number 012 429-4152 or email address
[email protected].
Tutorial letters are part of your study material for assignment and examination purposes.
They are just as important as the study guide itself. Read and reread each tutorial letter and
keep it for reference purposes. Tutorial letters that contain additional study material must be
regarded as part of your study material for study and examination purposes.
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7.4 Reader (prescribed cases)
In the study guide for PVL1501, you learn a little about the role of judgments or decisions of the
courts, which are contained in the law reports. The jurist constantly has to read these judgments.
They are an important source of our knowledge of the law as applied by the courts. You must also
learn from the outset how to deal with a judgment. However, in this module we do not wish to
overburden you with the reading of judgments. We therefore give you only three cases that you
need to know well. You do not have to find the cases yourself. After you have registered, you will
receive a reader that contains the prescribed cases.
It is compulsory that you study the cases in the reader (the names are listed below). You must study
the cases in conjunction with the study guide and textbook. This will help you to gain greater insight
into the relevant principles and their application. For the purposes of assignments and
examinations, a thorough knowledge of these cases is essential! You should also bear in
mind that the cases discussed in your study guide and in Heaton which do not appear in the
reader are also important and should not be ignored. They must be studied to the extent that
they appear in your study guide or in Heaton. In assignments and the examination, you are often
asked to provide authority for an answer. If a question requires reference to authority, you need
to refer to either a case or legislation, depending on the question. Decisions by our courts are
an important source of authority for the different issues on which the court must make decisions.
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Recommended guides:
This brochure contains important information and guidelines for successful studies through Unisa.
If you need assistance with regard to the myModules system, you are welcome to use the following
contact details:
You can access and view short videos on topics such as how to view your calendar, how to
access module content, how to view announcements for modules, how to submit assessment and
how to participate in forum activities via the following link:
https://dtlsqa.unisa.ac.za/course/view.php?id=32130
Registered Unisa students get a free myLife e-mail account. Important information, notices and
updates are sent exclusively to this account. Please note that it can take up to 24 hours for your
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account to be activated after you have claimed it. Please do this immediately after registering
at Unisa, by following this link: [email protected]
Your myLife account is the only e-mail account recognised by Unisa for official correspondence
with the university, and will remain the official primary e-mail address on record at Unisa. You
remain responsible for the management of this e-mail account.
Many students find the transition from school education to tertiary education stressful. This is also true in the
case of students enrolling at Unisa for the first time. Unisa is a dedicated open distance and e-learning
institution, and it is very different from face-to-face/contact institutions. It is a mega university, and all our
programmes are offered through either blended learning or fully online learning. It is for this reason that we
thought it necessary to offer first-time students additional/extended support to help them seamlessly navigate
the Unisa teaching and learning journey with little difficulty and few barriers. We therefore offer a specialised
student support programme to students enrolling at Unisa for the first time – this is Unisa’s First-Year
Experience (FYE) Programme, designed to provide you with prompt and helpful information about services
that the institution offers and how you can access information. The following FYE services are currently
offered:
• FYE website: All the guides and resources you need in order to navigate through your first
year at Unisa can be accessed using the following link: www.unisa.ac.za/FYE
• FYE e-mails: You will receive regular e-mails to help you stay focused and motivated.
• FYE broadcasts: You will receive e-mails with links to broadcasts on various topics related to
your first-year studies (e.g. videos on how to submit assessments online).
• FYE mailbox: For assistance with queries related to your first year of study, send an e-mail
to [email protected] .
• www.unisa.ac.za
• https://my.unisa.ac.za
• https://www.facebook.com/UniversityOfSouthAfrica
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• https://twitter.com/unisa
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/unisa
9 STUDY PLAN
Please refer to the Study @ Unisa brochure on the Unisa website for general time management and
planning skills.
10 PRACTICAL WORK
You are not expected to do any practical work for law of persons.
11 ASSESSMENT
11.1 Assessment criteria
It is your responsibility to check on myUnisa before the examination date to ensure that all
formative assessment marks have been recorded against your name. It is also your
responsibility to check on myUnisa what the examination date is, and to ensure that it is the
final (and not preliminary) examination date.
• All information about when and where to submit your assessments will be made available to
you via the myModules site for your module.
• Due dates for assessments, as well as the actual assessments are available on the
myModules site for this module.
• To gain admission to the examination, you will be required to submit at least one quiz (ie
formative assessment).
• Although it is not required that you pass any of the two quizzes (formative assessments), you
should note that each quiz will count 10% towards your final mark for this module. Failure
to submit both quizzes will therefore not influence your admission to the examination
(summative assessment) but will influence your year mark.
• The weighting for the formative assessment for this module is 20%.
• You will receive examination information via the myModules sites. Please watch out for
announcements on how examinations for the modules for which you are registered will be
conducted.
• The examination will count 80% towards the final module mark.
• Assignment due dates will be made available to you on the myUnisa landing page for this
module. We envisage that the due dates will be available to you upon registration.
• Please start working on your assessments as soon as you register for the module.
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• Log on to the myUnisa site for this module to obtain more information on the due dates for
the submission of the assessments.
• The myUnisa virtual campus will offer students access to the myModules site, where learning
material will be available online and where assessments should be completed. This is an
online system that is used to administer, document, and deliver educational material to
students and support engagement between academics and students.
• The myUnisa platform can be accessed via https://my.unisa.ac.za. Click on the myModules
2023 button to access the online sites for the modules that you are registered for.
• When you access your myModules site for the module/s you are registered for, you will see
a welcome message posted by your lecturer. Below the welcome message you will see the
assessment shells for the assessments that you need to complete. Some assessments may
be multiple choice, some tests, others written assessments, some forum discussions, and so
on. All assessments must be completed on the assessment shells available on the respective
module platforms.
• To complete quiz assessments, please log on to the module site where you need to complete
the assessment. Click on the relevant assessment shell (Assessment 1, Assessment 2, etc.).
There will be a date on which the assessment will open for you. When the assessment is
open, access the quiz online and complete it within the time available to you. Quiz
assessment questions are not included in this tutorial letter (Tutorial Letter 101) and are only
made available online. You must therefore access the quiz online and complete it online
where the quiz has been created.
• It is not advisable to use a cell phone to complete the quiz. Please use a desktop computer,
tablet or laptop when completing the quiz. Students who use a cell phone find it difficult to
navigate the Online Assessment tool on the small screen and often struggle to navigate
between questions and successfully complete the quizzes. In addition, cell phones are more
vulnerable to dropped internet connections than other devices. If at all possible, please do
not use a cell phone for this assessment type.
As indicated in section 10.2, you need to complete 2 assessments for this module. Details on the
assessments will be made available on the module site.
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Examination information and details on the format of the examination will be made available to you
online via the myUnisa site. Look out for information that will be shared with you by your lecturers
and for communication from the university.
11.7 Invigilation/proctoring
Since 2020 Unisa conducts all its assessments online. Given stringent requirements from
professional bodies and increased solicitations of Unisa’s students by third parties to unlawfully
assist them with the completion of assignments and examinations, the University is obliged to assure
its assessment integrity through the utilisation of various proctoring tools: Turnitin, Moodle
Proctoring, the Invigilator App and IRIS. These tools will authenticate the student’s identity and flag
suspicious behaviour to assure credibility of students’ responses during assessments. The
description below is for your benefit as you may encounter any or all of these in your registered
modules:
Turnitin is a plagiarism software that facilitates checks for originality in students’ submissions
against internal and external sources. Turnitin assists in identifying academic fraud and ghost
writing. Students are expected to submit typed responses for utilisation of the Turnitin software.
The Moodle Proctoring tool is a facial recognition software that authenticates students’ identity
during their Quiz assessments. This tool requires access to a student’s mobile or laptop camera.
Students must ensure their camera is activated in their browser settings prior to their assessments.
IRIS Invigilation software verifies the identity of a student during assessment and provides for both
manual and automated facial verification. It has the ability to record and review a student’s
assessment session. It flags suspicious behaviour by the students for review by an academic
administrator. IRIS software requires installation on students’ laptop devices that are enabled with
a webcam.
Students who are identified and flagged for suspicious dishonest behaviour arising from the
invigilation and proctoring reports are referred to the disciplinary office for formal proceeding.
Please note:
Students who are enrolled for the law of persons module (PVL1501) will be expected to use the
Moodle Proctoring tool.
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12 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY
12.1 Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of taking the words, ideas and thoughts of others and presenting them as your
own. It is a form of theft. Plagiarism includes the following forms of academic dishonesty:
• Copying and pasting from any source without acknowledging the source.
• Not including references or deliberately inserting incorrect bibliographic information.
• Paraphrasing without acknowledging the original source of the information.
12.2 Cheating
Cheating includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• Completing assessments on behalf of another student, copying the work of another student
during an assessment, or allowing another student to copy your work.
• Using social media (e.g. WhatsApp, Telegram) or other platforms to disseminate
assessment information.
• Submitting corrupt or irrelevant files, this forms part of examination guidelines
• Buying completed answers from so-called “tutors” or internet sites (contract cheating).
12.3 For more information about plagiarism, follow the link below:
https://www.unisa.ac.za/sites/myunisa/default/Study-@-Unisa/Student-values-and-rules
12.4 Academic and Administrative matters
12.4.1 Academic Matters
All module content-related enquiries must first be addressed to the relevant module lecturers. As
already indicated above, all such enquiries must be made from your [email protected] email
account. Where your module lecturer(s) is unable to assist, such enquiries can be escalated to the
Chair of the Department in which your module is located. The Chair of the Department is the one
with the power to resolve issues, is authorised to make such interventions, and has the final say in
matters relating to the administration of a module. Such escalation must be done via the
departmental administrative staff.
Contact information for all the departmental administrative staff in the department is captured below.
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issues, graduation issues, auditing of a qualification, etc) with the relevant support department and
not the college.
15 IN CLOSING
We hope that you will enjoy this module and we wish you every success with your studies.
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