Legal Articles and Guides

The agency responsible for providing financial support to students is trying to claw back more than R1bn it has mistakenly paid out and needs to refund R26m to graduates who have been overcharged on their loans, according to a Business Day report.

A student has taken the extraordinary measure of taking the University of KZN to court to account for the whereabouts of a question paper for an exam he failed.

While upholding a High Court decision that Stellenbosch University was correct in implementing its 2016 policy that gave preference to English over Afrikaans, the Constitutional Court also acknowledged that the reality was that indigenous languages, including Afrikaans, were being diminished.

A significant number of public schools which have been disadvantaged by the country’s colonial and apartheid past continue to operate under conditions of extreme deprivation.

Two Northern Cape primary schools where 95% of the staff members are white have lost a court bid to fill vacancies with more white teachers. Kathu Primary, in the province’s ‘iron ore capital’, and Seodin Primary, in Kuruman, went to the High Court in Kimberley when the provincial head of education refused to rubber stamp the appointments of three white men.

Stellenbosch University amended its language policy due to political pressure and not for practical reasons, the lobby group Gelyke Kanse/Equal Opportunities claims in papers before the Constitutional Court.

The Constitutional Court has dismissed an appeal by Uitsig High School against Western Cape Education MEC Debbie Schäfer’s decision to close it, says an EWN report.

The KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) has ordered the provincial Department of Education to build a school for the Nkungumathe community in Nkandla.

The power struggle between Love and Care day-care centre founder Aurelia Kaitesi and the City of Cape Town’s mayco member Felicity Purchase over the management of the crèche has again ended up in the Western Cape High Court. A Cape Times report says Kaitesi and the board of governors sought an order to remove Purchase and a Noordhoek couple as trustees.

The Eastern Cape Education Department has resorted to court to urgently force the closure of several unregistered schools operating in the Centane, Butterworth and Nqamakhwe areas, says a Daily Dispatch report.

Mbalenhle Nkosi, an inmate at Johannesburg Medium C Correctional Facility, has taken the head of the prison, the National Commissioner and the Minister of Correctional Services to court over the prison denying him the use of his laptop.

A private university is now counting on the Constitutional Court for assurance that its 400 LLB students will be allowed to practise after graduating, says a Cape Argus report. The Independent Institute of Education (IIE) has brought an application asking the court to declare a section of the Legal Practice Act unconstitutional, as it only allows graduates from public universities to practise as lawyers.

The Constitutional Court has been asked to decide how much emphasis should be placed on the best interests of children when private schools are terminating a contract with the children’s parents which ultimately leads to the children being expelled, says a Daily Maverick report.

A case about whether a Johannesburg private school can expel two boys (8) for the alleged misconduct of their parents has landed in the Constitutional Court. The Star reports the battle between Pridwin Preparatory School and AB and CB – as the parents are called in affidavits – will be heard in the apex court next month.

A Cape Town public school has been fined for operating unlawfully for 113 years. However, Oakhurst Girls Primary, in Rondebosch, will have no difficulty paying the penalty imposed by a City of Cape Town Planning Tribunal, as it has been set at R0.