“Disgraceful abuse of legal authority” – attorney re-writes court’s judgment before delivery
In what two high court judges have described as misconduct “unprecedented in the annals of SA judicial history”, a magistrate has been found to have allowed an attorney to re-write his judgment before delivery. Even worse, the attorney concerned had appeared for one...
Valentine’s Day winner: new Tanzanian court rules improve experience of justice by vulnerable groups
Tanzania’s Chief Justice, Ibrahim Hamis Juma, has promulgated new rules that could greatly change how people from vulnerable groups experience courts and the justice system. That is why this is Jifa's winning Valentine's Day 2019 good news story: we like the care it...
Malawi’s CJ, JSC acted illegally over new appointments – high court
When a number of court clerks obtained an order temporarily stopping the country’s Judicial Service Commission and the Chief Justice from recruiting and appointing a certain category of magistrate until their employment dispute was fully considered by the high court,...
Keep your affidavits short – or you’re out!
Mabirizi v Attorney General In this judgment of Uganda’s highest court, seven justices of the Supreme Court taught counsel a crucial lesson: Keep your affidavits short! The justices had to deal with a challenge to an earlier constitutional court decision and were...
God speaks – through Zimbabwe’s high court
Mashangwa v Makandiwa In this case, Judge Owen Tagu of the high court in Harare was faced with a situation where two members of the United Family International Church wanted to sue the couple running the church, Emmanuel and Ruth Makandiwas (prophet and prophetess...
Court “stands tall”, rules that state violates evictees’ rights
The failure of Uganda's Government to pass laws protecting people evicted from private and public land has come under the sharp eye of the high court. Following an application brought by a local human rights lawyer, the court has declared that failure to pass laws...
Court tells Ugandan law council: no more ad hoc decisions on admission to practice
The council that oversees access to the legal profession in Uganda has just experienced a thorough defeat in the high court. A full bench found the council had not passed the regulations it should long ago have put in place regulating admission of candidates to the...
Secularism in Ghana “obviously” encourages state relations with religion, religious identity – supreme court
A major challenge to Ghana’s planned national cathedral, brought on the basis of a challenge to alleged infringements of the country’s “secular” constitution, has just been dismissed by the supreme court. Ghana’s highest court found that secularism in Ghana...
Dream on, Zimbabwe ….
Canadians who live abroad will now be able to vote — a right SA citizens have had for a decade, but which Zimbabweans can only dream of. THANKS to a 2009 decision of the constitutional court, SA’s upcoming national elections mark the 10th year that South Africans,...
Blunders set back fight against corruption
Namibia's watchdog Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) is in a great deal of trouble: a major bribery and fraud case, begun in 2009, appears to be imploding. Ten years after the scandal first broke that a member of the Public Service Commission, guardian of ethical...