Legal Articles and Guides

After weeks of acrimony, protest actions, court cases and even a clash between the SABC hierarchy and the ANC, the curtain came down on the first act of the SABC censorship saga this week with the broadcaster’s management – at one point brash and defiant – apparently in disarray and facing costs orders, notes Daily News. The seven journalists who bore the brunt of the SABC’s animosity – they were suspended, fired, then turned away despite a Labour Court ruling before finally being reinstated when the broadcaster thought better about launching an appeal – are back at work. But the final act – a bid by the journalists to get Constitutional Court clarity on the role of the public broadcaster – has still to be played out.

President Jacob Zuma must pay the R7.8m he owes for the Nkandla upgrades by September to comply with a Constitutional Court order, says a BDlive report. He has 45 days in which to pay the money, following the Constitutional Court’s approval this week of the amount as stipulated by the National Treasury. The National Treasury calculated that Zuma should pay 87.9% of the cost of five items deemed non-security by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela in her 2014 report, Secure in Comfort, on security upgrades amounting to R246m at Zuma’s homestead at Nkandla. This amounted to R7.8m. The Treasury last month submitted to the court the ‘reasonable percentage’ it had determined.

A Durban nurse says she is still battling to be compensated properly after she contracted HIV 13 years ago from a needle stick injury to her left thumb while attending to a patient at the private hospital where she worked, says a report in The Mercury. The nurse claims the hospital’s insurer, the Compensation Fund, deemed that she was only 15% disabled, and paid her accordingly, and is now rejecting her appeals to reconsider because of her declining health and inability to work.

In a judgment that damned Parliament for its failure to facilitate public participation in its legislative process, the Constitutional Court yesterday (Thursday) declared invalid in its entirety the Restitution of Land Rights Amendment Act, notes Daily News. ‘The NCOP public participation process was unreasonable and thus constitutionally invalid‚’ Judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga found in a unanimous judgment. According to a TimesLIVE report, the court pointed out that provinces gave out notices just days before hearings‚ which were held only in certain municipalities and excluded many of those affected. 

Former Minerals and Energy and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna (64) is embroiled in a legal battle to stop the millions he is owed from a broad-based BEE deal with petrochemicals giant Sasol from ending up in the hands of his ex-wife, Nompumelelo Maduna, says a Sunday Times report. He clinched the Sasol deal just two years after leaving the Cabinet in 2004. Maduna – now vice-chair at law firm Bowman Gilfillan – filed urgent papers in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) recently to stop Nompumelelo gaining control of about R18m in dividends scheduled to be paid out by Sasol this month. The court dismissed the urgency of the application, striking it off the court roll and saying that Maduna had not given Nompumelelo (61) and the other five respondents sufficient time to 'digest’ the 690 pages of his founding affidavit. 

The battle between the Gupta family and irate residents of Saxonwold over an ‘illegally built’ mansion that was allegedly devaluing the upmarket Johannesburg suburb resumed this week, with City of Johannesburg officials stepping in to conduct their own inspections. The Mercury reports residents want the properties demolished as they are in contravention of the town planning scheme. Joining city officials during the inspection of the property was a lawyer representing the Gupta family, and urban planner Craig Pretorius, representing residents belonging to the Saxonwold and Parkwood Residents Association of Johannesburg (Sapra). 

An unusual case of polyandry – a woman with more than one husband – is before the KZN High Court (Durban) in an application in which the woman is trying to get maintenance from her most recent ‘husband’ who is arguing that – unbeknown to him – she was still married to someone else. The Mercury reports the matter came before the court as a ‘Rule 43’ application which, in terms of the Marriages Act, entitles separated spouses to claim maintenance before the finalisation of their divorces. The case involves an unregistered Islamic marriage which is not covered by the Act. However, last year a judge awarded what was believed to be the first interim maintenance order in an Islamic divorce case which was seen as precedent-setting. 

The NPA will appeal Oscar Pistorius' six-year jail sentence, it said yesterday (Thursday), describing the sentence handed out by Judge Thokozila Masipa in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) as ‘shockingly too lenient'. It said the sentence had 'resulted in an injustice’ with the ‘potential to bring the administration of justice into disrepute’, notes Daily News. Pistorius was sentenced on 6 July for fatally shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day in 2013. He was initially convicted of culpable homicide and received a five-year sentence, but the SCA changed the conviction to murder and ordered that he be re-sentenced. 

In the absence of an alternative to holding African perpetrators of human rights violations and international crimes accountable for their actions‚ an exit by SA from the International Criminal Court will not bode well for the rule of law. According to a TimesLIVE report, this view is contained in a letter written by SA Human Rights Commission chair Lawrence Mushwana to International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane. In the letter‚ Mushwana raised concerns about some positions taken by the country and also requested a meeting to discuss these issues.

The seven Coloured Department of Correctional Services employees who won a victory in the Constitutional Court against the discriminatory employment plan of the department‚ have hailed the judgment as a victory for minority groups, says a TimesLIVE report. They said it was a shame they had to turn to the top court to restore their dignity as a people. The court held that the decisions of the department not to promote the seven applicants to the posts they sought‚ constituted unfair discrimination and unfair labour practices. The court also said those who had been denied promotion and whose posts were available must be promoted and remunerated the balance of what they would have been paid when they were denied promotion. It said if the posts had been filled‚ they should be paid th e remuneration and benefits of the posts for which they had applied.

In what Business Day describes as an unprecedented move, lobby group Advocates For Transformation (AFT) will tomorrow (Saturday) seek the expulsion of the Cape Bar from the General Council of the Bar (GCB) over transformation concerns. The AFT wants the Cape Bar to amend its constitution to require that 50% of its council, the governing body, should be nominated by the AFT, as is the case at the Johannesburg and Pretoria Bars. The GCB’s own governing structures are also constitutionally structured to be 50% AFT. The Cape Bar’s constitution is different. It requires that 50% of members of its council be black – African, coloured, or Indian – but this is not dependent on organisational affiliation. The Business Day report p oints out that until recently, the 50% black requirement meant in practice that 50% of the Cape Bar council’s members were in fact AFT members, as most black members of the Bar were AFT members.

Estate agent Vicki Momberg, whose racist rant against black policemen was caught on video and went viral on social media, is sorry about the incident, according to her representative, Advocate Nardus Grove. Momberg appeared in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday (Thursday) on crimen injuria charges, notes a report on the Mail & Guardian Online site. Grove was trying to persuade the court not to allow the matter to be broadcast live on television when he noted his client was apologetic about her rant. Earlier, state prosecutor Yusuf Baba submitted an application to Magistrate Penny Viljoen in which media houses sought permission for live television broadcasts of the proceedings. Grove opposed the application saying the matter was being 'sensationalised' and would ruin his client's career.