SA President has power to confer SC status on advocates ConCourt rules today
Senior advocates may rest easy: the Constitutional Court has ruled that they wear their Silk status quite legitimately. Or at least, for the moment they may rest easy. For Justice Bess Nkabinde, writing on behalf of a unanimous court, made it plain that the only issue...
Investigate Zim torture, top court tells SAP
In a hugely important judgment for international human rights, the Supreme Court of Appeal has today ordered that the South African Police must investigation alleged systematic torture by Zimbabwe officials against political opponents in Harare. The court doesn’t tell...
First deafblind person to receive OBE is a South African priest
IN just a few hours a man who made news when he was barred from boarding a plane in South Africa, will be invested with the OBE at Windsor Castle. Behind the two events lies the same set of facts: Cyril Axelrod, a deaf and blind Catholic priest, travels...
Soldier, blinded by HIV-AIDS, forced to quit army without a hearing
LESOTHO has never been top of my list of countries with a sparkling human rights record. That’s despite its strong showing over corruption associated with the Katse Dam project. So I was delighted this week to find a new judgment in which the high court there, sitting...
Nine years & 10 days later judge gives her decision: justice delayed?
WHO would have thought that Namibians led such a hectic life? All this time I had imagined they enjoyed a laid-back approach you might associate with the rural parts of South Africa. Wrong, obviously. The pace of life there must be way more demanding than in, say,...
Record-breaking Tiger, with prey, outside Smithfield, Free State
Still out of breath from an early morning big game hunting action adventure on a farm just outside Smithfield, south east Free State. It started out quite calmly when my dogs and I went running on a friend’s farm. At our usual turn-around place we all ran on further –...
Bosses must investigate ‘racism’ claims before bringing charges – here’s why
ALLEGE someone is a racist at work and they are as good as dead. It’s an indelible mark of Cain in modern South Africa. That’s why extra care should be taken when charges of racism are involved. Even when you’re cleared of such charges your life can literally be...
Snow in Smithfield? In October? …
No, actually. It was a hail storm late yesterday and that’s hail heaped up around the witstinkhout trees and the gutter pipes. Very welcome after six months of serious drought. But we’re never satisfied, and now we hope for more ….
Secrecy and the legal profession
READING court judgments can be a very depressing business; among the worst are decisions about lawyers who have ripped off clients or something similar. Take a recent judgment by the high court in Pretoria concerning an application by the Law Society of the Northern...
Want to know why Bloemfontein is called Rosestad?
Not hard to answer. Here’s the explanation seen in an exhibition at the Waterfront shopping centre in Bloemfontein last week: Part of an intricate carpet of roses on display Individual competitors submitted roses in different categories A stunning variety of...