Legal Articles and Guides

Historically disadvantaged Karoo residents have been vindicated by a landmark SCA judgment which found they have a right to access land their ancestors first occupied more than 200 years ago, says a Cape Times report. Rural labourers and schoolchildren in Grootkraal, Oudtshoorn, were confronted with losing the land after Kobot Business Trust bought it in 2010, and decided to develop the land into a game farm for commercial purposes.

The KZN High Court (Durban) has granted an order against the provincial Department of Social Development and the eThekwini Municipality after the electricity for the Enduduzweni Centre for the Disabled in Umlazi was disconnected. GroundUp says the centre had been without electricity for two weeks, with residents using fire to prepare meals.

Should the Equality Court rule in favour of a transgender prisoner to express her gender identity as a female in a male facility, then the Standing Order in prison should be sent back to the Minister for review.

The battle by companies to profit from social grants rages on with another round of court action, this time between Sassa and another Net1 subsidiary, which will be heard today. According to a Mail & Guardian Online report, the Net 1 subsidiary, Moneyline Financial Services, is asking the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) to compel Sassa to accept the consent forms – confirming bank accounts into which the social grants should be paid – of beneficiaries through Cash Paymaster Services (CPS).

Employees who were not entitled to maternity leave before will now on be entitled to 10 days’ paid parental leave to be paid out of the Unemployment Insurance Fund. A TimesLIVE report notes that this follows the signing of the Labour Laws Amendment Bill into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday, as reported in Legalbrief Policy Watch yesterday.

Minister in the Presidency Responsible for Women Bathabile Dlamini allegedly barred eNCA from entering a hall where she was launching the 16 Days of Activism Campaign in Mthonjaneni, northern KZN, yesterday. According to a News24 report, the broadcaster reported that Dlamini's communications team said she had instructed them that she would only speak to the SABC ‘because they know the parameters’.

A landmark ruling not only gives the Eastern Cape community of Xolobeni the right to refuse mining in the pristine Wild Coast area but will extend this power to any community under customary law, according to a Business Day report. More than 15 years of fierce dispute over the potential mining of the titanium-rich dunes in the impoverished area culminated in Judge Basson ruling yesterday that Mining Minister had no lawful authority to grant a mining right to an Australian company unless ‘full and informed’ consent had been obtained from the surrounding community.

The Gauteng High Court has stopped Eskom from cutting or interrupting the power supply of Musina in Limpopo because the municipality owed the utility money. Sakeliga NPC brought an urgent application yesterday, seeking to interdict Eskom from going ahead with cutting the town's power supply due to its municipality failing to make default payments, says News24.

The Constitutional Court is expected to deliver its ruling on the Gatherings Act today. Cape Argus reports two months ago, the court heard the matter after Western Cape High Court Judge Thandazwa Ndita ruled in January that section 12(1)(a) of the Regulation of Gatherings Act was unconstitutional.

The Constitutional Court – in Maledu and Others v Itereleng Bakgatla Mineral Resources (Pty) Ltd and Another – has unanimously confirmed that mining companies, traditional leaders and the Departments of Rural Development, and Mineral Resources have been flouting the law and the Constitution. ‘The court put people and their rights back at the centre of the administration of their land, something they have been denied by practice and law for centuries,’ says Zenande Booi, of the Land and Accountability Research Centre in the UCT’s Department of Public Law.

The Department of Home Affairs wants marriage officers who are appointed after the Civil Union Act is amended to be aware they will have to solemnise same-sex marriages. The Mercury reports this emerged yesterday when state lawyers made a presentation to the National Assembly Home Affairs Committee on the Civil Union Amendment Bill.

The High Court battle over who should pay former President Jacob Zuma’s legal fees could be precedent-setting – by establishing principles for when and how the state will pick up the tab when officials are charged with corruption in the future.

The courts have stopped Eskom from cutting off the electricity of two rogue municipalities that owe it billions, telling government it needs to take responsibility and find a solution to the problem of defaulting municipalities. The Top 10 defaulting municipalities owe Eskom R9.5bn, notes a Business Day report. The judgments are the result of applications brought by businesses in Maluti-A-Phofung (Harrismith) and Emfuleni (Veereniging and Vanderbijlpark) which faced electricity interruptions despite having paid the municipalities for electricity.

The Legal Resources Centre (LRC) has filed an application in the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) in a bid to stop the Ingonyama Trust from converting informal land rights into long term lease agreements, writes Legalbrief. The centre is acting for the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution, the Rural Women's Movement, and seven informal land rights holders.

Carly Bonnesse (24) – left brain damaged and paralysed in a Van der Kemp’s Kloof bridge crash 11 years ago – has now turned to the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) to force the Road Accident Fund (RAF) to pay for a car. The Herald reports Bonnesse has also been battling to get payment for her carers and alterations to her home.