Articles

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 –...

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...

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...

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...

It’s not every day that a court gives helpful advice to unsuccessful litigants on other ways to achieve their goal. But judges of the Seychelles Court of Appeal – the highest judicial forum in that country – have gone out of their way to help someone who was turned...

THE old VW Passat had done 280 000 km and cost R61 450 but it suited the new buyer just fine. Then, after just three days, it broke down. Her disappointment has been the public gain, however, as the dispute has led to a major new consumer protection decision. And...

It’s a busy afternoon, writing columns for the weekend deadline, but I have had to take time out to read an important judgment, delivered by the Supreme Court of Appeal today in the case of sacked SABC journalist, Vuyo Mvoko. The decision makes for very satisfying...

Belief in witchcraft will no longer automatically keep the death penalty at bay in Zambian murder cases, according to a landmark new judgment of that country’s Supreme Court. Five judges of Zambia’s highest court, including the Chief Justice and the deputy Chief...

WHEN the government of Rwanda recently applied to the United Kingdom’s secretary of state for the extradition of five alleged genocidaires, it claimed a “sea change” had taken place in the way Rwanda’s courts operated. Concerns expressed by the UK courts in earlier...

Ever since her appointment as Chief Justice of the Seychelles in 2015, Mathilda Twomey, the first woman to hold this position, has been a target of sexist behaviour and threats by a particular senior colleague on the Bench. But though this judge, Durai Karunakaran,...