Legal Articles and Guides

Government departments, law enforcement and prosecution agencies will be using existing legislation to investigate and recover unexplained wealth – where the assets of an individual exceed declared income sources and are suspected to have been acquired illegally.

Lawyers in East London and Bhisho have welcomed Justice Minister Ronald Lamola’s announcement in responding to a question in the NCOP last week that apartheid-era High Court boundaries might be on the way out.

Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) Deputy Judge President Roland Sutherland has ruled it inappropriate for any lay person or entity to simply approach a court to have the name of a legal practitioner removed from the roll.

Justice & Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola is confident the backlog in the Master’s Office – which accumulated during the Covid-19 pandemic and as a result of a September 2021 cyberattack – will be cleared by the end of December 2022.

Stellenbosch Municipality has failed to act on a six-month-old Public Protector report accusing it of maladministration and improper conduct, according to the Cape Argus.

The politicking of suspended Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, and her authoritarian management style – ‘She must be addressed as “madam”. She must be bowed down to, quite literally,’ – featured during yesterday’s hearing into her fitness for office.

The ANC's chief whip in Parliament says opposition parties gunning for President Cyril Ramaphosa's head over the Phala Phala saga are unprincipled and opportunistic, reports News24.

Parliament’s Section 194 Committee tasked with determining Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office as Public Protector will not summons President Cyril Ramaphosa to testify, a move that raises the spectre of a further delay should Mkhwebane decide to resort to the courts on the matter.

Minister of Home Affairs Aaron Motsoaledi has said the department will launch a three-year project to digitise its records.

A GroundUp investigation into lottery corruption since 2018 has uncovered hundreds of millions of rands of dodgy grants and conspicuous expenditure.

Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi has announced changes to be implemented when collecting passports in a bid to clamp down on fraud, reports The Citizen.

‘The role of judges in South African public life seems to be growing ever bigger, but not always to their benefit. Judges traditionally used to speak only through their judgments, but no longer: even in pending cases we have heard judges speaking out.’

‘Over the past two decades, we’ve endured a myriad of cataclysmic junctures that have slowly eroded the legitimacy of the state and stripped away any hope the nation had of a "new dawn". These include, the Marikana tragedy, the Life Esidimeni scandal, state capture and the 2021 July unrest. Collectively, these form part of a continuum revealing the array of human rights violations that have persisted in spite of SA’s constitutional democracy.’

The ‘widely publicised’ letter of Advocate Malesela Teffo addressed to prosecutor Advocate George Baloyi and copied to Judge Tshifhiwa Maumela in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial has been taken up by Johannesburg-based attorney Bouwer van Niekerk, who says the seriousness of Teffo’s accusations ‘cannot be overstated’.

A couple who fell into arrears on their home loan and were about to lose everything are breathing easier after KZN High Court judge ruled against Standard Bank, which was found to have made false allegations in its attempt to repossess the house.