Malawi case flags growing threats to human rights, role of African Court
Almost every country in the world is experiencing a narrowing of peoples’ rights and freedoms because of government restrictions imposed in the name of fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. But will these governments willingly give up their new powers as the contagion...
Teachers body vicariously liable for rape, sexual assault at school – appeal judges
Whenever a judgment announces that it is dealing with ‘novel questions of law’, readers need to pay close attention. This is just such a case. It concerns Kenya’s Teachers Service Commission, a body that had employed a teacher who sexually abused some students. Was...
Posthumous win for Kenyan human rights activists
Many decades after they were detained and tortured, two prominent Kenyan activists who campaigned for multi-party democracy and human rights have been awarded posthumous compensation related to their detention and torture under previous repressive governments. The...
Dying surrounded by family ‘a most fundamental right’ – court
In a case that has moved readers worldwide and that sparked a judge to comment on the rights of a dying person even during the COVID-19 pandemic, a court has ordered that a terminally ill Nigerian woman living in the UK be allowed to leave the care home where she had...
RIP Justice Augustino Ramadhani
Justice Augustino Ramadhani, who died this week at the Aga Khan Hospital in Dar es Salaam, had been the Chief Justice of both Zanzibar and of the United Republic of Tanzania. He had also served as a judge on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights from 2010 to...
First-class vs economy-class access to the law: what the US Supreme Court says
A new decision from the US Supreme Court has a strong message for other courts, lawyers and everyone who works with court documents and with legislation, annotated or otherwise. The judgment restates the principle that no-one may claim copyright on decisions of the...
Lockdown still on hold, AG taken to task: latest from Malawi high court
In this week’s round of an ongoing dispute over the validity of Malawi’s Covid-19 restrictions, the high court has ruled that the government's planned regulations may still not be put into effect. The court has referred these challenges to the Chief Justice who will...
Security forces sowing terror in Lesotho, Lawyers for Human Rights tells court
Lawyers of yet another SADC country have turned to the courts for help with security force brutality against ordinary people in the community, carried out under cover of Covid-19 regulations. This time it is Lesotho Lawyers for Human Rights that is asking the high...
Totality principle in ‘harrowing’ Seychelles online sexual abuse case
From the holiday islands of Seychelles comes a new judgment with a warning for all of us on lockdown with kids spending too much time online. It is a horrifying reminder of the dangers lurking on Facebook and other seemingly innocent platforms: even in a paradise like...
Not the court’s duty to go fishing after judgments
In Their Own Words: Read judgment in Tapvice Enterprises v Tetrade Investment Bank Judge Pisirai Kwenda, High Court of Zimbabwe, Harare A number of issues bedevilled this case, which was an application for rescission of a default judgment against the applicants. One...