Kenya’s Capital Markets Authority klapped for “violating natural justice”
WHEN the statutory authority supposed to protect an entire country’s capital market including the stock exchange is found to have acted “in total violation of the principles of natural justice” it must mean, at the very least, that the judgment concerned is worth...
Land claims backfire as courts rule against communities
FOR everyone involved in or affected by land claims in South Africa, May 2018 must go down as one of the most disastrous months yet in the history of attempted restitution: in every one of the decisions by the land claims court during that month those communities who...
Mbulelo Mtati – a bad case of injustice
As I write this I feel deeply ashamed; ashamed of a legal system that delivers unspeakable injustice to a poor man trying to provide his family with a home. That man is Mbulelo Mtati. He is a cleaner at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. No-one could call him well-off....
SADC Tribunal, crucial protector of individual rights, “dumped” by Zuma
WHILE dispute rages over when and how SA’s President Jacob Zuma will leave presidential office, even his international record over support for human rights has been questioned via unprecedented scrutiny in the courts . Zuma’s agreement that the crucial SADC Tribunal –...
New African leaders “give hope” that human rights tribunal could be restored
A TOP SADC-Lawyers’ Association official says this week’s high court case on President Jacob Zuma’s role in removing legal rights from millions of people living in SADC countries, presents “a unique opportunity” for SA judges to defend constitutionalism and the rule...
So how DO real anchovies taste?
FOR years I have wondered whether “real” anchovies tasted significantly different from those in little tins and glass pots: would they be as different as fresh asparagus is from the tinned sort? When I spotted a new-look variety of the little fish in Woolworths the...
No Silence from THIS Lamb
WHEN the much-pilloried Shaun Abrahams, national director of public prosecutions, eventually leaves office, we will all look back with wonder at what a sheep can do. We already know of his bizarre sense of priority crimes requiring urgent and undivided attention –...
AG has no power to help cabinet ministers in court: they must pay back the money
IMAGINE this: a country’s attorney-general comes to the highest court claiming, in effect, that this self-same court was complicit in “slavery and forced labour” via an unjust and flawed judgment, and therefore ought to reconsider and change that decision. Though it...
Liberia’s war criminals closer to justice thanks to novel strategy
CONVICTED Dutch millionaire war criminal and arms smuggler Guus Kouwenhoven is sitting in Cape Town, determined to resist extradition to Holland where a 19-year jail terms waits for him. He has been convicted in his absence of crimes relating to Liberia’s decades-long...
Judges silence “rumble of malice”
Brave judgments, giving the clearest illustration of judicial independence are being delivered all over Africa. The courts in South Africa are often praised for their courage and independence, but it is increasingly a virtue being seen elsewhere. Take the case of...