Articles

TWO experiences in our tiny platteland dorp today set me up for the judgment I’ve just read. We were running in the veld, the two dogs and I, when suddenly they stopped, alert, watching a cow and her still wet, new-born calf lying on the grass. The mother stepped...

We’ve just added eyelashes across the lean-to built along the length of our barnhuise. They are made of latte (thin wattle poles) and I love the shadow patterns they create. The view from the office isn’t bad either although the garden landscaping is a work in...

WHY don’t the media routinely list the legal representatives of parties at the end of news reports? It would help the public make better choices about who should represent them. This is an argument I’ve made before, but here’s another case in point. Judge NF Kgomo of...

IT looks like an attractive double-storey piece of real estate, but the Beau Vallon police station has an ugly reputation. It serves the most popular beach on Mahe, largest of the Seychelles islands which, judging from comments on the travel site ‘Trip Advisor’, most...

THE story reads like something out of Precious Ramotswe’s casebook; something for the No 1 Lady Detective to discuss with her devoted secretary, Grace Makutsi, over mugs of strong rooibos tea. It’s January 2007 and a five year old boy has disappeared from the remote...

ALL that anxiety we experience about buying property? – It’s well justified. As a case decided by the Supreme Court of Appeal this week demonstrates, there are indeed sellers willing to create fraudulent camouflage; who know, but disguise, a building’s serious faults....

It’s true, it’s official and it’s great news. Smithfield, our little dorp in the N6, half way between Gauteng and Grahamstown, is hosting a platteland preview of the National Arts Fest fringe. We’re inviting all fringe performers, musicians, visual artists etc who...

TOP police officials regularly put their feet where their mouths should be when appearing in person at the Marikana inquiry, but even when their legal representatives speak for them in court they don’t do much better. Just ask Steven Mothoa whose case against the...

THANKS to an invitation from the University of Pretoria I’ve been having fun teaching a law course to journalism honours students. Something we discussed is that legal documents are worth examining for possible stories beyond the issue in dispute. For example...

This is the story of a judge, a Turkish grande dame, a rich young man, an ostentation of peacocks – and a cherry tree. And like George Washington in the famous story, I do not lie. At the centre of my tale, one of a dispute between two property owners united in their...