Legal Articles and Guides

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has recommended petitions to the SA Law Reform Commission to amend legislation to ensure consent was properly obtained for sterilisation procedures for women.

A police bungle that saw Olwethu Kulati held for four days for being in possession of half a mandrax pill will cost the taxpayer R128 000 in compensation for his ‘unlawful’ detention.

A war criminal has found a safe haven in SA, the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court ruled on Friday. Magistrate Ingrid Arntsen said it was with ‘great regret’ she had decided that Dutch arms dealer Augustinus Kouwenhoven could not be extradited to the Netherlands, where he has been sentenced to 19 years behind bars, notes a TimesLIVE report.

SARS Commissioner Edward Kieswetter has hit back at Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s claims that former President Jacob Zuma is supporting her demands for access to his tax records.

The governing bodies of four heavily overcrowded schools in the Eastern Cape claimed victory in the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha) yesterday when the court ordered the Eastern Cape Department of Education to provide 65 emergency mobile classrooms to the schools within the next three months.

The EFF has urged the Constitutional Court to uphold a High Court ruling that a section of the Riotous Assemblies Act is unconstitutional.

In seven working days, the City of Cape Town can enforce its bylaws on the refugees and asylum seekers living outside the Central Methodist Mission church on Greenmarket Square in Cape Town, notes a News24 report.

In what Business Day calls a scathing and precedent-setting ruling against Discovery Health Medical Scheme, the industry regulator has opened the door for consumers to force the industry to pay for treatment not available in state hospitals.

The Constitutional Court is mulling separate cases of allegedly discriminatory wills in order to pronounce on the boundaries of freedom of testation.

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) stopped short of imprisoning a municipal manager in Limpopo for the municipality’s consistent failure to abide by a court order that water must be supplied to the five villages – but the communities have vowed to fight on, says a Daily Maverick report.

‘How the administrations of President Cyril Ramaphosa and those who will follow him tackle the question of land remains a deeper and long-term fundamental risk to future investment, says the CEO of Business Leadership SA, Busisiwe Mavuso. She says removing the courts as the final arbiter in the decision-making process – as proposed by the ANC – would be ‘a dangerous move’.

The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act – to be rolled out in June – will presume motorists guilty until they prove themselves innocent and therefore take away the constitutional rights of motorists.

Congregants of a Chatsworth church have obtained a court order against a school after it allegedly denied them access to conduct weekly services.

‘To understand how reluctant courts are to accept claims of illness on the say-so of a criminal accused or his doctor, one need look no further than the curious case of alleged fraudster Gary Porritt, who failed to convince the court that he was too ill to attend court, despite providing three different doctor’s notes to that effect.’

The concept of “maternity leave” has been around in our law for a long time, and the journey towards extending the concept to employees other than mothers has been a long one, marked latterly by much delay and confusion over implementation of new legislation addressing the issue.