Help yourself please
What is an employer to do if a medical condition precludes a staffer from fulfilling her responsibilities? If a staff member has a medical problem and can’t carry out her duties as before, what are the obligations of her employer? Is the employer obliged to ensure she...
What sentence when brother kills brother?
Republic v Alfred Kipkemoi Yator [2019] eKLR Muriithi, J Kenya's Judge Edward Muriithi presided in a trial where one brother was charged with killing another brother by shooting him with a bow and arrow during a fight. He pleaded guilty and was convicted of...
The law that refused to die
S v Mafudza (CR 63/2019) [2019] NAHCMD 323 (05 September 2019) Judge President Damaseb and Acting Judge Sibeya The two judges were considering a magistrate’s conviction and sentence and were astonished to find that the accused had been charged and fined for a...
Husband’s right to ‘rule over his wife’ – it’s gone!
Women’s month may be over for 2019, but there is one new judgment that cannot be left out of consideration. It comes from Eswatini where a full bench of the high court - Principal Judge Qinqisele Mabuza with Judges Titus Mlangeni and N J Hlophe – has handed down a...
Appeal blocks far-reaching environmental ruling
Intrigues, illegalities and pollution involved in a sugar milling operation whose poisonous effluent eventually flows in Lake Victoria have been highlighted by Kenya’s environment and land court. In a far-reaching judgment, the court gave the company 120 days to sort...
Tiny, remote Namibian clan claims world renowned Etosha National Park as ancestral land
Perhaps they didn’t realise it, but when eight members of Namibia’s Hai||om people went to court for what they claimed was their traditional land, they raised a number of other burning socio-political issues as well. The Hai||om live in a remote northern area of...
Environmental law in action: Jifa training course
When prominent global warming scientists hail a legal decision as a ‘watershed’ for climate change action, you know that judgment must, at the very least, make for good reading. But the judges attending last week’s environmental law training offered by the Judicial...
Conservation victory as Kenyan judge rules against ministers
One of Kenya’s fabled national parks and the most remote of them all, is allegedly under threat by the actions of two cabinet ministers and the neglect of the country’s wildlife service. That is according to claims made in litigation before the environmental and land...
Self-confessed poachers acquitted after prosecution’s mistake
Two Tanzanian poachers, who admitted they shot two animals in a national park, have been acquitted and set free on a second appeal. The country’s chief justice and two other appeal court judges found the prosecution had made crucial mistakes in the trial of the two...
Keen interest in Jifa’s first environmental law training course
Judges from across the African continent have been attending the first specialist course offered by the Judicial Institute for Africa (Jifa) on environmental law. The week-long course has brought together specialists in the field and already the participating judges...