Legal Articles and Guides

Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo has ordered a full Bench to sort out the tangle of inconsistent home repossession judgments, reports GroundUp. The landmark case to decide how banks should deal with home repossessions will now be heard on 28 and 29 August in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg). Mlambo also wants the court to establish under what circumstances judges should set reserve prices on repossessed homes.

The office of the Minister of Police has again capitulated in what was a three-pronged legal attack by a Durban businessman, who was harassed and thrown into jail several times because of a ’civil dispute’ he had with racehorse owner Roy Moodley, says a News24 report.

Prominent Eastern Cape attorney Dumisani Tabata’s R500 000 defamation lawsuit against Johannesburg lawyer Themba Langa may have become at least financially academic after Langa was recently sequestrated. But, notes a Daily Dispatch report, although Langa may now not be in a position to cough up money if the Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown) finds against him, Tabata will pursue the matter.

Former Somerset West Mugg & Bean manager Andile Bozo will be reinstated after claiming he was dismissed by his employer who he alleged had told him that customers did not want to be served by a black manager, says a Cape Times report.

Residents facing eviction from their homes in Woodstock were entitled to challenge the City of Cape Town's housing plan, the Western Cape High Court has ruled. The residents believe the city has gone against its own policy by excluding them and others from two sites near the CBD earmarked for transitional housing sites, says GroundUp.

The Constitutional Court has reserved judgment in a case involving the future of 12 poor Cape Town residents facing eviction from homes they have been living in for nearly two decades, says a Cape Times report. The residents had bought the houses through the Cape Town Community Housing Company (CTCHC) – a social housing development company wholly owned by the National Housing Finance Corporation, and formed to administer the delivery of houses in the city.

The Constitutional Court has opened the door to a prosecutions authority free of political blinkers by ordering out current NDPP Shaum Abrahams with immediate effect and refusing his predecessor the option of returning to the position from which he was unconstitutionally removed, notes Legalbrief.

A Potchefstroom doctor who is being probed after several patients died under his care has failed in an urgent application to have his suspension lifted, says a report in The Star. One of his alleged victims was a 12-month-old girl who suffered burns when a cup of boiling water fell on her.

A long-running battle between an Mpumalanga businessman and conservationist, Fred Daniel, who obtained an interim protection order against Deputy President David Mabuza to prevent the former Premier from allegedly trying to run him off his land in the Great Nkomazi River Valley, took a turn in the Carolina Magistrate’s Court recently when a new magistrate hearing the matter was asked to recuse himself.

Two former University of Johannesburg executives have denied claims that they stole more than R14m from the institution and are fighting to clear their names in court, says a report in The Star. Professor Roy Marcus, former chairperson of the university council, and Jaco van Schoor, the sacked deputy vice-chancellor of finance, through their legal team have opposed the application for damages which UJ brought against them in the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg).

Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba wants the Guptas to answer in court for their alleged racial slurs against black South Africans, says a BusinessLIVE report. Mashaba said he had written an open letter on 11 June to NDPP Shaun Abrahams‚ giving him 60 days to take action against the Guptas after disclosures of their corrupt activities and alleged racist behaviour towards black South Africans.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed not to defend two legal applications by the DA aimed at preventing former President Jacob Zuma from using taxpayer funds to challenge corruption charges against him, says a Weekend Argus report. In both cases, Ramaphosa has submitted papers stating that he would abide by the court’s decision.

A R100m lawsuit is unfolding in Mpumalanga over a school feeding scheme tender saga that has been raging for the past five years, according to City Press. It says the province’s school nutrition programme, established to feed more than a half a million poor pupils, has been marred by tender rigging allegations as unscrupulous officials are accused of favouring some companies above others.

A Cape Town man who allegedly sought to threaten his estranged wife into acceding to his demands during their divorce has been ordered to permanently remove any pornographic material which she was part of from all his digital devices. A report on the News24 site notes that the couple, who cannot be named to protect the identity of their children, had made sex videos in their home during the course of their marriage.

The Right2Know campaign and Privacy International (PI) have applied to intervene as amici curiae in the matter of amaBhungane challenging the government on the law around spying on citizens, says a News24 report. AmaBhungane filed an application in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) last year, making a case that Rica (the Regulation of Interception of Communication and Provision of Communication Related Information Act) is unconstitutional.