Chief Justices from southern Africa offer help to resolve Swazi judicial crisis
Chief Justice of Namibia, Peter Shivute, has offered the help of the Southern African Chief Justices Forum to resolve the Swazi judicial crisis. Shivute issued the offer in his capacity as chair of that forum, as the crisis in Swaziland continued. According to the...
Somali hijack of vessel causes global legal conundrum
WHEN Somali pirates captured the vessel Asphalt Venture off the coast of Mombassa during September 2010, no-one could have foreseen the far-reaching human and legal dramas that would result. These have spanned the globe, and, with further legal action scheduled for...
Planned new SADC court ‘unconstitutional’ say lawyers
Lawyers say South Africa should not be supporting a planned new regional court that ‘disregards the human rights of individuals’. IN a move of crucial importance for human rights in southern Africa, lawyers are challenging Pretoria’s attempts to join with other...
Chief Justice’s regulations declared unconstituitonal
REGULATIONS the chief justice has used to compel retired judges into disclosing their financial interests have been found unconstitutional. This follows a case heard in the high court earlier this week, brought by retired former deputy president of the Supreme Court...
E-Toll costs Sanral didn’t want the public to know – here they are
CONTROVERSIAL proposed toll roads into Cape Town will cost motorists nearly three times what they now pay to use Gauteng’s discredited e-toll system. These figures were released today by the City of Cape Town, following a judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal,...
Urgent need to stop SA ‘traditional child marriages’
THE case of a 14 year old girl abducted, ‘married’ to a man twice her age, locked up and raped, all in the name of traditional practice, has caused shock reaction. The real horror is that this is no one-off crime. Calling it no less than ‘sexual slavery under the...
Sanral ‘files forged docs’ in Wild Coast toll road court battle
AS if the South African National Roads Agency doesn’t have enough to worry about after last week’s tough hearing in the Supreme Court of Appeal, it is now also being accused of forging court documents to promote its proposed Wild Coast toll road. Sanral came under...
Girl, 14, ‘married’ & then raped: man jailed after customary law defence rejected
THREE high court judges ruled today that a man who ‘married’, abducted and raped a 14 year old girl in the name of customary practices, should be convicted of rape and human trafficking and sent to jail. The judges, from the high court in Cape Town, were sitting as an...
Appeal against Sanral secrecy order
RIGHT from the start it was clear the five judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal were unhappy with the judgment before them. Hardly five minutes into arguments on Wednesday this week they commented: “One doesn’t like to be critical of sitting judges, but during the...
Woman, 80, “claimed she was raped all night” by neighbour: appeal court says it’s “one rape”
PROSECUTOR Jerry Noge smiles from the pages of Khasho, journal of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority. It’s September 2012 and he has reason to be pleased: he has just won a convincing victory in a terrible rape case. He tells how Mongezi Motshesane, 38,...