Terrible fires today; remembering terrible punishment for arsonists 300 years ago
Terrible fires have burnt the Overberg this month. This is the part of the Western Cape where I live and while we've been seeing close up what the fires mean, the resulting dense smoke plumes could even be seen in satellite pictures, drifting 300 km north of the...
Zambia’s top court upholds property rights against the state
Zambia’s highest court has delivered a new decision that ends more than four decades during which government occupied prime private land, land that was never paid for and that the state appeared to think it could hold and use, indefinitely. It's a judgment of major...
Writing historical fiction after a lifetime writing about the law
Some days I feel like a traitor. After decades of writing about law and legal developments with an almost obsessive determination to find and stick to verifiable facts, I’ve started to write fiction. Historical fiction. The book of short stories I’m working on is...
Top judges back Uganda’s outdated divorce laws
Uganda’s constitutional court has decided that the country’s divorce laws, requiring strict proof of dastardly sexual behaviour by one of the parties before a judicial divorce will be granted, are quite compatible with the constitution. And, moreover, that the...
Children’s song helps convict rapist father
A popular action song, widely taught to children in Kenya and elsewhere to help protect them from sexual predation, has played a key role in detecting the rape of a four-year-old by her own father and in the father’s subsequent conviction and sentence. Giving her...
Ritual killings, legal loophole on death penalty laws in Zimbabwe
A recent decision by Zimbabwe’s supreme court illustrates, yet again, the problem of ritual killings – murders in the name of witchcraft – and how the courts should deal with them. But this particular case, in addition to being one of the most tragic and gruesome that...
Appeal court insists on transparency from judges, probity from counsel
Uganda’s appeal court has delivered a major decision that insists essential legal principles must be observed by both the courts themselves and by practitioners who appear in the courts. The three appeal judges effectively censored a legal practitioner as well as a...
Ugandan law students wrestle with real-life human rights issues
Determined – and brave – staff at Uganda’s Makerere University law school have done it again: they have incorporated a current ‘hot’ Ugandan human rights issue into an examination written last week. While it is common practice in many countries for exam questions to...
Eswatini’s law society boss accused of undermining court’s integrity
Prominent Eswatini lawyer, Mangaliso Magagula, faces a personal D-Day: he has been charged with contempt of court by high court judge Titus Mlangeni who said the evidence indicated, on the face of it, that Magagula had committed contempt by undermining the integrity...
Valentine’s Day, but not much legal love in Uganda
Tensions continue to build in Uganda, where the government and the army are still ignoring the supreme court judgment of more than two weeks ago. This landmark decision nullifies trials of civilians in military courts, ordering that all civilians still on trial before...