Archive - Carmel Rickard writes...

Government sets up a massive national system using mobile phones to track and trace COVID-19 suspects

2 April 20202 April 2020
by Carmel Rickard

The South African government has introduced new, wide-reaching regulations that will allow it to track the whereabouts of anyone on a national database that is being developed, and that will list people who have come into contact with individuals confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 or who have tested positive themselves.

The new regulations, published today, introduce a tracking system unlike anything South Africa has seen before. They will allow the government to know precisely where someone is, and to trace their movements. The regulations take advantage of the fact that so many people in South Africa have mobile phones that they take everywhere with them. Using information obtained from phones, the new system will keep tabs on people and allow the authorities to track the location of anyone and where they have been.

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New government regulations allow mourners to cross provincial borders for funerals – but only under strict conditions

2 April 20202 April 2020
by Carmel Rickard

Strict Government COVID-19 regulations have been slightly relaxed to allow bereaved family members to cross provincial boundaries if this is necessary to attend a funeral.

The new regulations, contained in today’s official Government Gazette, are clearly a response to last week’s court decision in which a judge said it was ‘tragic’ not to be able to permit a man, whose grandfather had died in a fire, to travel across provincial borders to attend the funeral and support his family over their time of mourning. In terms of the regulations as they then existed, however, the courts were not empowered to make any exceptions, the judge said at the time.

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Human rights fightback as security forces take abusive action under cover of COVID-19 regulations

2 April 20202 April 2020
by Carmel Rickard

As the security forces of some African countries take abusive action against people under cover of COVID-19 lockdown regulations, human rights groups have begun to fight back. Prompted by complaints of serious constitutional rights’ violations – beatings, torture and other abusive and humiliating treatment – Kenya’s law society has brought a petition to the courts, and a human rights organisation in South Africa has done the same. In Kenya the court has agreed to part of the petition, with other issues still to be argued at a later date, possibly even today, while the SA case could be called later this month.

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No protection in Zim for pangolin, alleged trigger of world’s coronavirus pandemic

2 April 2020
by Carmel Rickard

Scientists increasingly believe that pangolin meat might have been part of the trigger for the deadly coronavirus. In this case the pangolin would have been bought in a typical Chinese market where illegally obtained wildlife has been an everyday element. But though that news has given new impetus to wildlife protection, it turns out that there is no proper legal protection for the pangolin in Zimbabwe. Cabinet ministers have not added it to the list of protected species whose possession is unlawful – despite being urged to do so in a recent judicial decision.

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Repressive policing law: scathing judgment by Uganda’s constitutional court

2 April 20202 April 2020
by Carmel Rickard

One of Uganda’s most contentious laws has come under fire by that country’s constitutional court. A particularly repressive section giving the police power to prohibit all public gatherings and protest has been declared unconstitutional and the court’s majority took the opportunity to criticise the way police hound and harass any political gathering not called by the ruling party.

Read judgment

The majority judgment of Uganda’s constitutional court in this challenge to the law that inhibited the right to gather and protest, reads like the stirring highpoint of some movie legal drama.

Government sets up a massive national system using mobile phones to track and trace COVID-19 suspects

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New government regulations allow mourners to cross provincial borders for funerals – but only under strict conditions

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Human rights fightback as security forces take abusive action under cover of COVID-19 regulations

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No protection in Zim for pangolin, alleged trigger of world’s coronavirus pandemic

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Repressive policing law: scathing judgment by Uganda’s constitutional court

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