Legal Articles and Guides

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has ruled that Gauteng’s Health MEC, Dr Gwen Ramokgopa, is to pay for all damages as a result of the death of local rugby league player Zacharius Johannes de Lange at the Steve Biko Hospital.

Policing and prosecution of offences relating to possession of or dealing in ecstasy are likely to change as a technical legal challenge to the outlawing of the ‘club drug’ in SA makes its way through the court system.

Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth) Acting Judge Nicholas Mullins has heard that a cascade of events that left a newborn baby with severe brain injuries was preventable by the administration of a medical product easily available to a paediatrician.

The parents of a girl – now aged nine – are claiming more than R20m in damages from the Gauteng Health Department after the child was exposed to too much oxygen at birth, leading to her blindness, says a report in The Star.

Twenty-two former underground miners are claiming more than R80m in damages from Sasol Coal after they contracted serious lung and other diseases allegedly as a result of years of inhaling coal dust while working in underground coal mines.

Euthanasia remains ‘in the fog of debate’ in SA legal circles and has been debated both before and since the constitutional dispensation arrived along with democracy. The debate, says Werksmans Attorneys’ Neil Kirby, was recently ‘revived’ by the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruling in Stransham-Ford v Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, and a subsequent decision, on appeal, by the SCA in Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and Others v Estate Late James Stransham-Ford and Others.

A gynaecologist who was sentenced to five years direct imprisonment for the death of a patient due to labour complications plans to petition the SCA to appeal his conviction and sentence after the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) confirmed the findings of the eMalahleni Regional Court.

The KZN Department of Health appears to be heading for another legal showdown when the head of surgery from the strife-torn Ngwelazana Hospital returns to his job, which has already been given to someone else, suggests a Sunday Tribune report.

A matter due to come before the KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) this month represents a test case for Health Department claims that public hospitals are as good as private ones, notes Daily News. Mbali Nzimande, whose five-year-old daughter was born with cerebral palsy, secured costly professional help after she won a legal battle against the KZN Health Department in June last year.

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has heard that it was not the fault of the 33 children who were on the brink of being stateless that they did not have birth certificates. A Pretoria News report says the good news for the children is that Home Affairs has agreed to register the 33 SA children who were on the brink of not being considered as a national by any state.

A finding by the Health Professions Council (HPCSA) that a Port Elizabeth heart surgeon should be allowed to work only under supervision after he watched sport on TV during surgery has been set aside by the Eastern Cape High Court (Port Elizabeth), according to a report in The Herald.

North West surgeon Dr Samuel Smith has been vindicated by a Supreme Court of Appeal ruling which dismissed a patient’s legal challenge that he did not explain surgery options available to her, and was therefore responsible for the pain she had experienced.

Athletics SA has issued a rebuke of the International Association of Athletics Federations and says the body failed to prove its case in the appeal hearing of double Olympic champion Caster Semenya.

A car crash victim – who alleges he was told to walk home by Gauteng hospital staff who believed he was not injured – is suing the Health Department for R2m damages after it emerged he had a spinal injury.

The Western Cape High Court has granted the City of Cape Town an interdict with costs against preventing the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival Association (CTMCA), the Cape Cultural Carnival and Events Committee (CCCEC) and their member troupes from hosting events at any City-owned facility without complying with applicable regulations and the law first.