Legal Articles and Guides

The Western Cape High Court has extended interim relief to homeless people in Cape Town from receiving fines and summons or having their personal property interfered with in terms of by-laws around them inhabiting public places.

The Western Cape High Court has postponed the hearing on the eviction of 76 families from a state-owned farm outside Stellenbosch, at the request of the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform & Rural Development, according to a West Cape News report on the GroundUp site.

Black workers who live in a single-sex hostel at a Western Cape wine estate have been told the Equality Court is not the correct forum to resolve their grievances.

The Constitutional Court held yesterday that the doctrine of common purpose applied to the common law crime of rape. It made the finding in dismissing an appeal by two men who were convicted of rape 20 years ago under the doctrine of common purpose.

The owner of a superette in Woodlands, Cape Town, was yesterday reprimanded by an Equality Court magistrate for 'wasting the court's time' and failing to see the 'seriousness' of the complaint against him.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane maintains she does have the power to obtain former President Jacob Zuma's tax information from SARS whose refusal to provide it, she says, could result in ‘criminal sanctions', notes News24.

With the Festive Season (and our Summer Holidays!) well and truly upon us, you may be inviting family or friends to visit you from overseas with their children, or perhaps you are a foreigner planning a family trip to South Africa. Either way here’s some good news in the form of a welcome concession from government in regard to the documentation you will need to produce on entry.

A group of 30 women police officers handcuffed a father who had missed a Maintenance Court hearing and sang Wathint’ abafazi, wathint’ imbokodo (You strike a woman, you strike a rock) as they marched him out of his office.

The anonymity of child victims or perpetrators of crime should remain beyond the age of 18, unless they consent to revealing their identity after they have reached adulthood. The Constitutional Court made this provisional order yesterday as it extended the protection of anonymity to child victims, witnesses and perpetrators of crime, says a TimesLIVE report.

Three men whose cattle were confiscated by police six years ago are suing the Minister of Safety & Security for R9.5m following the loss of 116 animals, says a report in The Witness.

A recent judgment by a full Bench of the Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) makes it unlawful for banks to bring National Credit Act (NCA) matters before the High Court instead of the much cheaper Magistrate’s Courts, according to a Moneyweb report.

‘Few legal provisions have given our courts more trouble to interpret and apply than section 10 of Pepuda. Different courts have given wildly different interpretations of this hate speech provision. No wonder then that the SCA complained last week in Qwelane v SAHRC and Others that section 10(1) of Pepuda was ‘‘barely intelligible’’.’

The vice-chancellor of Stellenbosch University, Professor Wim de Villiers, has been cleared of alleged attempts to interfere in a Constitutional Court case related to the university's 2016 language policy, says a News24 report.

It is important for the Constitutional Court to give a proper interpretation of the law arising from the case of former diplomat Jon Qwelane's opinion on same-sex marriage, a legal expert is quoted as saying in a News24 report. 

Controversial former diplomat and ‘gay is not OK’ columnist Jon Qwelane scored a victory in the SCA last week when the court dismissed a finding that he was guilty of hate speech and ordered Parliament to rewrite the ‘vague’ and ‘overbroad’ law meant to protect against discrimination.