Articles

LIKE most readers I can still clearly remember some aspects of going to school as a child – horror lest one’s parents come to class and ‘make a fuss’, for example. And, though it was slightly less long ago, I can also remember some of the difficulties of being a...

AT last, eight years later, the courts are finally done with the three cops who shot and killed a farmer in the Eastern Cape. Their appeal against conviction and sentence was rejected last week, and two of them – the third, Mlungisi Papu has since died – will now...

SO bad were services in the Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality that the provincial authorities used their extraordinary powers under the Constitution to dissolve the municipality in September this year and appoint an administrator to sort things out. Since...

HOW does a trivial dispute between neighbours over hooting at the gate become a matter for police arrest, overnight detention in cells, a trial and conviction? – A high court judge who had to hear the matter on appeal has speculated that it must have been because of...

NOT easy keeping poachers at bay, even the small-scale ones. Every day in our area of the south east Free State we see people, on horse-back or on foot, armed with sticks and with parties of dogs, setting off into the mountains. Hours later they come back carrying...

AN ATTORNEY who stepped into a multi-million rand road accident injury case at the last minute and claimed a quarter of his client’s entire award has been reported to the law society by a high court judge who slammed the lawyer’s ‘rapacious conduct’. Johannesburg...

SUING the lover of your spouse or ex-spouse for damages can be dangerous. It’s very, very expensive if you lose; it can be equally costly even if you win. And that’s just the money. The personal and social costs in embarrassment and pain to all involved – sometimes...

A WOMAN is attacked, raped twice and left with broken bones and her life in tatters. For this the rapist is given a completely suspended sentence plus a trivial fine for attempted murder. Welcome to the real world of South African justice: the rural magistrates court....

WHEN Oscar Pistorius says his nightly ‘thank you’ prayers there’s one that might have escaped his attention: He should be devoutly and eternally grateful for the tardiness of the Department of Justice and its Minister. If it wasn’t for their slackness, Pistorius could...

ALL those jokes about Nigerian drug dealers and shysters? – don’t translate them into an anti-Nigerian workplace or business policy or you could find yourself in big trouble. Nigerian doctor Anderson Anyikwa was barred from an upmarket restaurant during 2010 by a...