Legal Articles and Guides

A case in the Free State High Court will test whether enticement is still a ground to claim damages in SA law. Rapport notes that Bloemfontein businesswoman Lizette van Schalkwyk (49) is claiming damages of R1.5m from Christie-Ann Roberts (25) for allegedly enticing her husband, Willem (49), into an affair.

Marriages performed under the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act are recognised as legal and may only be dissolved by a court through a divorce. The Star reports this was the opinion of attorney Selwyn Shapiro, who said since the Act came into force and these marriages were now recognised in law, it followed that the union had to be dissolved through divorce.

A woman who claims she had to give up her car and job to become the good housewife her now estranged common-law husband wanted, is claiming R63 100 a month in maintenance from him. According to a report on the IoL site, the woman, from Midrand, said during their union of about two years she worked her fingers to the bone in the house, during which time he gave her an allowance.

A senior advocate (79), ordered to pay his wife R11.1m after a six-year divorce battle, has had the amount reduced to R4.4m on appeal, says a TimesLIVE report. SCA Judges Stevan Majiedt and Owen Rogers said the advocate was argumentative‚ arrogant‚ obdurate‚ mendacious‚ evasive and tendentious.

Many couples are not making their 10th wedding anniversary – and it’s mostly wives who are calling time on their relationships. Black families in particular are fracturing‚ as divorces climb.

As more and more South Africans opt to live together without formally marrying (or entering into a civil union or recognised customary marriage), the need to bust the myth of the “common law marriage” becomes more acute.

Our law, in protecting the interests of children in particular, provides you with an array of options when it comes to enforcing payment of maintenance orders.  One of them is to ask the court to jail the defaulter for “contempt of court”.

In a landmark case, a businessman has been convicted of failing to pay more than R1m in spousal and child maintenance from August 2012 – when the couple divorced – to May 2016 when his ex-wife laid charges against him, notes a Sunday Times report.

Briton James Tomlinson, a permanent resident in SA, and his wife, Sarah Nandutu, a Ugandan citizen, have won – and lost – in their Western Cape High Court Home battle with Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba. While their son, Joshua, will finally have the birth certificate they needed, they failed to convince the court to amend immigration regulations that have prevented them from living as a family.

Failure to follow customs to the letter when marrying his partner has cost a Soweto man the right to bury her. The Mercury reports Leonard Khosa was interdicted by the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) yesterday from burying Ayanda Zulu, for whom he completed paying lobolo in 2014.

The Women's Legal Centre on Friday upset lawyers in the Western Cape High Court when it pointed out that nine counsel had been appointed by the state to argue the organisation's application for the recognition of Muslim marriages, and all nine had advanced the same argument.

Western Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai has noted the Muslim Judicial Council’s backing of an application by the Women’s Legal Centre for the recognition of Muslim marriages infers that it realises there is an issue, says a report in The Witness.

As courts internationally are increasingly confronted with the issue of custody in fertility, SA couples using in vitro fertilisation to conceive are being advised to draw up legal documents akin to antenuptial contracts, reports Times Select.

A divorced father who failed to honour his child maintenance obligations and ignored court rulings is set to have his house sold in execution of his debt towards the child. A TimesLIVE report notes the Constitutional Court did not hear the merits of the man’s appeal‚ despite sitting on two occasions‚ because the man did not fully comply with its order made in August that he make payments towards the maintenance of the child.

A Nigerian pastor who fled religious persecution will finally be able to officially marry his SA partner after the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) declared a Department of Home Affairs ban on asylum-seeker marriages unconstitutional. A Weekend Post report says Pastor Emmanuel Paulking Oche Ochogwu (35) tried unsuccessfully to marry last year.