Legal Articles and Guides

Whoever wants to ban a particular speech act or item must bear the political, legal and ethical burden – a heavy burden – of explaining why the proposed ban is justified in light of salient facts. All of these legal, moral and political issues must be opened up for close public contestation. And, says analyst Eusebius McKaiser, ‘that contestation must itself be celebrated as a healthy rehearsal of the very speech rights that are frequently the subject of the disagreements between us’.

The National Health Department has moved to distance itself from an 'unconstitutional' instruction that state hospitals should turn away foreigners unless they pay in full. The circular, which the department has blamed on a junior official, will be withdrawn today, allegedly as a result of questions posed by the Sunday Times and provincial health officials in the Western Cape.

The Ingonyama Trust has condemned a court bid to compel it to stop collecting rent from occupiers of land that falls under it as a ‘direct attack’ on Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and his subjects, according to a Sunday Times report. The trust was responding to an application filed by the Legal Resources Centre on behalf of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac), the Rural Women’s Movement and seven informal land rights holders who are challenging the conversion of informal land rights to long-term lease agreements.

If you plan to buy a house before the property market starts to recover from its present doldrums, be aware of the risks you face if anyone is currently in the property.

The Department of Rural Development & Land Reform and an Eastern Cape chief have succeeded in convincing the Eastern Cape High Court (Mthatha) that they have the right to bring a case about a group of people they claim are illegally occupying land in Libode.

The Jehovah's Witness father of a seriously anaemic 10-year-old KZN girl has said he was entitled to refuse to consent to a blood transfusion for her as he firmly believed that there were medically acceptable alternatives that were as effective, if not more.

The old South African flag will come into focus when the Nelson Mandela Foundation and AfriForum appear in the Equality Court on 29 and 30 April to argue for and against whether the apartheid symbol constitutes hate speech. In February last year, the foundation announced that it had made an application to the Equality Court for an order declaring that gratuitous displays of the old apartheid flag constitute hate speech, unfair discrimination and harassment based on race, it said in a statement yesterday.

The Ekurhuleni family who force-fed their employee two litres of faeces and threw him into a pit have been ordered to pay him R200 000 in damages. The Star reports they also have to undergo a race relations programme for three months. Magistrate Pravina Lazarus, who presided over the case in the Equality Court sitting in Springs yesterday, found that when the family fed Joseph Mona stools, they stripped him of his human dignity.

Cape Town was on the brink of a garbage disaster just before Christmas in 2016 – but it was kept secret and resolved unlawfully. A Times Select report says the ‘situation of potential emergency’ has come to light in a judgment which lambasts the city council for an 11th-hour land grab intended to stave off catastrophe.

The Bo-Kaap community and land activists have hailed a Heritage Western Cape (HWC) decision to dismiss an appeal for development in the historically significant area. Bo-Kaap Civic and Ratepayers Association secretary Jacky Poking said the HWC Appeals Committee dismissed developer Any Side Investments’ appeal, regarding their proposed development of 150 Buitengracht Street.

A KZN drug dealer, who has served 11 years of a 25-year prison sentence for dealing in dagga and cocaine, has won his bid to be considered eligible for parole. According to a TimesLIVE report, the SCA has ruled unlawful an order made in the Camperdown Regional Court – and later confirmed by a full Bench of three judges in the province – that former Briton John Tutton not be considered for release until he has served at least 15 years of the sentence.

Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane's office stepped in after a father ignored a court order stating he should support his child. The father has now had R300 000 taken from his pension fund to cover years of outstanding child support payments and future maintenance costs. Mkhwebane's office said it had decided to step in after the mother complained that the Government Pension Administration Agency (GPAA) had failed to comply with maintenance court orders to pay the amount from the father's pension fund, notes TimesLIVE.

The sheriff cannot affix court notices to grass, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruled in a feud over the repossession of a property. According to a Rapport report, Anet Maré succeeded in getting back her smallholding near Polokwane after it had been sold by Absa on auction.

Nearly 130 residents of Winnie Mandela informal settlement in Tembisa have taken the Ekurhuleni municipality and the Gauteng Human Settlements Department to court in a bid to hold them in contempt of the High Court order for the building of their homes.

Vodacom is facing the escalating wrath of customers and citizens over its long battle with former employee Nkosana Makate, who invented the Please Call Me service. The Star reports Vodacom has been warned that it has until 10am today to pay Makate or face citizens who are mobilising for a total shutdown of services at Vodacom stores.