Legal Articles and Guides

Unisa has successfully approached the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) for an urgent interdict against personnel in a bid to continue final exams for hundreds of thousands of students, Beeld reports. Unisa says in court papers the exams are being threatened by employees under the urging of Mpho Moses Morolane and Malebo Charline Nkoane on the Muckleneuk campus.

Varsity College has approached the courts to have wording in the Attorneys Act and the Legal Practice Act declared unconstitutional, says a report in The Mercury. This follows an impasse with the KZN Law Society over the body’s refusal to have the institution’s LLB graduates admitted for articles. The institution has filed a Rule 16A notice with the High Court asking that it declare the use of the word ‘university’ in both Acts unconstitutional.

The four-year LLB degree – offered for the first time by Varsity College this year – is under threat, says a Times Select report. At least 10 parents of students doing the degree at its three campuses in KZN have threatened legal action. One has already served summons demanding a repayment of fees because of ‘misrepresentations and negligence’.

Varsity College has found itself in a quagmire because the KZN Law Society refuses to allow its LLB students to register to serve their articles, says a report in The Witness. The college contends it has all the relevant accreditation to offer the degree but the society maintains that ‘only a university’ may do so. This follows amendments to relevant legislation last September which no longer classifies Varsity College as a university.

The governing body of Grey College in Bloemfontein was on the receiving end of a severe hiding in the Free State High Court this week in connection with its attempt to curtail the powers of its principal, notes a Volksblad report. Acting Judge-President Cagney Musi declared the governing body had acted unfairly and unlawfully during a meeting at which it was decided that Deon Scheepers should be relieved of all ‘delegated’ powers and in future focus only on academic matters at the school.

Gauteng Education MEC Panyaza Lesufi has lost his battle to force Hoërskool Overvaal‚ an Afrikaans medium school‚ to take 55 English-speaking pupils. In a unanimous judgment‚ the Constitutional Court dismissed Lesufi’s appeal bid and backed the decision made by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria), says a BusinessLIVE report.

A ’significant milestone’ is how the SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) described the ruling by the Eastern Cape High Court (Bhisho), which found it was unconstitutional and invalid for the government to delay fixing poor and unsafe school infrastructure. The commission said inadequate school facilities had a debilitating impact on pupils and staff and hampered the delivery of proper education.

The head of sport at a private school is said to have made a grovelling apology to a father of one of the pupils after admitting he ranked boys for tennis without having watched them play. A Sunday Times report notes the father is involved in a protracted legal battle with Pridwin Preparatory in Johannesburg after the school effectively expelled his sons in June 2016 for their father’s behaviour on the sidelines of school sports activities.

The Eastern Cape High Court (Bhisho) has postponed judgment in the case of Equal Education versus Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga to tomorrow, says TimesLIVE. The verdict was supposed to have been handed down yesterday, but Judge Bantubonke Tokota said there were still 'technical' issues that needed to be dealt with.

A battle that started more than two years ago on the sports field and went all the way to the Constitutional Court still has parents and the principal of a prestigious private school at an impasse, according to a Sunday Times report. At the centre are two boys who, amid the legal battles and name-calling, still attend Pridwin Preparatory School – unless the SCA says otherwise.

Afrikaans has to fall as a dominant language at Stellenbosch University because it denies black students access, the institution says in papers filed at the Constitutional Court. The court will be the final arbiter in the battle by Afrikaans lobby groups to have the language re-instated as a parallel medium of instruction at a number of universities.

Bloemfontein's prestigious Grey College Secondary School is a ticking time bomb on race, the chairperson of its governing body says in court papers. According to a Volksblad report, the school governing body (SGB) is opposing an application by headmaster, Deon Scheepers to be re-instated after the SGB decided to strip him of his powers.

The Constitutional Court has agreed to hear oral arguments on 13 September in the case challenging the language policy of Stellenbosch University, Netwerk24 reports.

A battle between the community of Uitzig in Ravensmead and the provincial Education Department over the closure of Uitzig High School is under way in the Western Cape High Court. A Cape Argus report says the community wants the court to force the department to keep the school open after they indicated that it will close due to vandalism.

Free State schools plan to bring a class action suit against the provincial Department of Basic Education to force it to fill vacancies and pay outstanding subsidies. According to a Volksblad report, individual schools have already started litigation in the Free State High Court and their lawyer notified the department that he was awaiting instructions to turn the litigation into a class action.