Legal Articles and Guides

The Department of Education is in trouble with the law after its teachers ignored a Chapter Nine institution order to stop discriminating against pupils belonging to the Nazareth Baptist (Shembe) Church. The Mercury reports 13 schools in the province have been accused of forcing pupils who are members of the church to cut their hair. This after they had been warned that they were interfering with pupils’ right to practise their religion.

Grahamstown resident Sazi Matama (45) has instituted a R100 000 claim against the business owner who admitted to calling him a ‘kaffir’ after a parking altercation. A Cape Times report says Matama has charged that Muiriel Els’ conduct has violated his rights to human dignity and violated the Promotion to Equality and Unfair Discrimination Act. His case at the Equality Court in Grahamstown was postponed this week for heads of arguments.

Private property developers at the centre of a legal dispute expected the court to ‘get blood out of a stone’ when they asked that Bromwell Street residents in Woodstock – who are facing eviction – pay their legal costs. A Cape Times report says the lawyer for Woodstock Hub had asked the Western Cape High Court yesterday to order the residents to pay for the legal fees.

A former SARS employee‚ fired in 2007 by then SARS Commissioner Pravin Gordhan for using racist and derogatory language‚ has had the reversal of his dismissal overturned by the Constitutional Court. In what media reports describe as a 'scathing' judgment handed down by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng yesterday‚ Jacobus Kruger was labelled a racist for using the k-word at work in August 2007. The ruling has inplications for workplaces across the country, notes Daily News.

Municipalities may not hold a property owner liable for a previous owner’s historical municipal debts, the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruled yesterday, notes Business Day. It says the judgment will give relief to home and business owners who have been saddled with years of historical municipal debt, and who have been refused municipal services until the debt had been settled.

A dagga-smoking woodcutter has become the first person in the Eastern Cape to obtain a stay of prosecution pending the outcome of a constitutional challenge by a husband and wife widely known as ‘the dagga couple’. The Herald reports the ruling by the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) that the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions hold back on prosecuting Bryan Jones (38) has now opened the floodgates for other dagga users to bring similar applications.

The Health Professions Council of SA's (HPCSA) Advocate Henry van Bergen told the SCA on Friday that High Court Judge Hans Fabricius’ ruling allowing court-sanctioned euthanasia had no legal value because Robin Stransham-Ford died hours before the ruling, notes a TimesLIVE report. Van Bergen argued that there was insufficient evidence that Stransham-Ford wanted to die.

Did the family of cancer patient Robin Stransham-Ford – who won his court battle for assisted suicide – keep his death a secret so the court case could be concluded? The Times reports that is one of the questions the Health Professions Council of SA wants the SCA to consider as it decides whether terminally ill patients can use doctors to end their lives.

Terminally-ill people who die with the help of a doctor die ‘peacefully’ according to a doctor from the US state of Oregon where euthanasia is legal. A Daily Dispatch report says Peter Reagan’s affidavit has been submitted to the SCA, which – on Friday – will hear arguments in the right to die case brought by the late Capetonian Robert Stranstham-Ford.

Vicky Momberg may be expected to pay a R150 000 fine to the Equality Court, and has offered to plead guilty in the criminal case for her racist rant, but the state has insisted a trial date be set for the real estate agent. The Mercury reports Momberg became infamous when a video emerged of her verbally attacking police officers assisting her after she was hijacked, throwing around swear words and racial slurs.

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has repealed the eviction proceedings against Citrusdal farmworker Abraham Snyers, after finding the eviction notices by his employers – Mgro Properties – were invalid. A Cape Times report says the SCA upheld Snyers’ leave to appeal, with costs, after a Land Claims Court (LCC) judgment which confirmed the validity of the eviction notices.

Here's the story of yet another bitter dispute between neighbours over the loss of a treasured view. The setting this time is a group housing development which was specifically designed to give each and every house views of both the sea-shore and of Table Mountain. The judgment in Gerstle and Others v City of Cape Town and Others is available for further reading.

On 13 September 2016, the Constitutional Court handed down judgment in a matter concerning an application for confirmation of an order of invalidity made by the Western Cape Division of the High Court and an appeal against certain parts of that order that declared certain specified words in section 65J(2) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act (Act) inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid to the extent that they fail to provide for judicial oversight over the issuing of an emoluments attachment order against a judgment debtor.

A divorce summons issued in Sepedi is not an everyday occurrence in the courts, but a couple are demanding their court documents be issued in their mother tongue, notes a Cape Times report. Their lawyer, Tshepo Sebola, of Maluleke Seriti Makhume Matlala Inc, said since Sepedi is one of the 11 official languages it was his clients’ right to have summons issued in their language.

The owner of a luxury Cape Town holiday villa has won a court order shutting down nearby ziplines after her wealthy clients complained about the noise, says a TimesLIVE report. Cape Town Ziplines' operation at Constantia Nek will host its last clients next Sunday under a Western Cape High Court order. The seven ziplines have been operating without planning permission at Silvermist Mountain Lodge since November 2014.