Legal Articles and Guides

The eThekwini Municipality says a massive billboard overlooking the N2 highway is a road safety hazard and it has taken its fight to the courts to have it torn down, notes a report in The Mercury. ‘The distracting effects of advertising create a hazard,’ the municipality’s chief legal adviser, Clement Xulu, said in papers filed in the KZN High Court (Durban).

The Legal Resources Centre has welcomed a Constitutional Court judgment which has implications for the conduct of courts in future evictions of occupiers, says a TimesLIVE report. The centre represented the Poor Flat Dwellers Association‚ a non-profit organisation formed in 2009 to resist the exploitation of flat dwellers‚ as a friend of the court in the case in which the Constitutional Court held that courts have an obligation to consider all relevant considerations before ordering an eviction‚ in cases where an unlawful occupier has apparently consented to his removal.

Albert Venter, the brains behind the ‘new car for only R699 per month’ scheme, is losing his Pretoria house after Standard Bank obtained judgment of R7.8m against him. According to a report in Rapport the property is up for sale. The scheme left thousands of motorists with problems when advertising revenue for advertisements placed on the cars was not forthcoming.

The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) has refused to enforce an ‘accelerator’ clause in a home loan agreement based on a 2016 Constitutional Court judgment making it much more difficult for banks to take back the homes of defaulters, a Beeld report notes.

Controversial Western Cape Judge President John Hlophe is back in the spotlight following his contested handling of a High Court matter involving allegations of a multi-mi llion rand fraud. One side in the dispute claimed they had a ‘reasonable apprehension’ that the judge was biased against them. And the SCA has now set aside Hlophe’s disputed orders and findings, agreeing that, given his behaviour, this ‘apprehension’ was justified, notes leading legal writer Carmel Rickard in a report on the Legalbrief Today site.

The chairperson of the cash-strapped Road Accident Fund is said to have pushed for a ‘consolation prize’ candidate who ‘lacks technical skill’ to head up the organisation rather than a higher scoring candidate who he felt was ‘too strong’. Chairman Ntuthuko Bhengu is also accused in court papers of making unilateral decisions without input from board members‚ in the latest controversy to rock the beleaguered fund, notes a TimesLIVE report.

The Consumer Tribunal has dismissed the National Credit Regulator’s (NCR’s) complaint against Lewis Stores relating to the retailer’s club fees and extended warranties. A Business Day report says the judgment has been met with dismay by a consumer group and the NCR is planning to launch an appeal.

Government has missed the deadline to respond to the District Six Working Committee’s demands about the number of land claims it had received and those it had approved for financial compensation, says a Cape Times report. The committee’s attorney, Nicki van’t Riet, said yesterday that they would go ahead with litigation following the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform Minister Gugile Nkwinti’s failure to provide answers to their letter of demands sent more than a month ago.

Netcare Ltd is being sued for the damages suffered by a patient who was allegedly operated on with non-sterile equipment at the Netcare Pretoria East Hospital. Beeld reports that Susanna Botha (64), a nurse, will be able to push ahead with her R2.6m claim for allegedly botched eye surgery following the the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruling. According to court papers, Botha suffered extensive visual impairment.

A recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) decision (M v M (332/2015) [2016] ZASCA 5) illustrates once again how essential it is, before getting married, to have your lawyer structure your antenuptial contract (ANC) correctly, and with as much detail as is needed for certainty.

Following on from the judgment in the Prince v Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development and Others case there is a lot of confusion as to whether dagga (cannabis) remains an illegal drug in South Africa, fuelled in part by conflicting media reports.

The SCA, which is wrestling with an appeal against a Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) ruling in favour of bail for Chris Hani’s killer Janusz Walus, was told yesterday Walus had been stripped of his SA citizenship. ‘Representatives of the Department of Home Affairs confirmed it,’ Advocate Roelof du Plessis SC told Judges Christiaan van der Merwe, Jeremiah Shongwe, Mandisa Maya, Boissie Mbha and Ashton Schippers.

The question of whether the Minister of Police can be held vicariously liable for a reservist in uniform who shot his girlfriend at dinner is to be heard by the Constitutional Court in August, according to a TimesLIVE report. Twice before the court has dealt with police criminality. In 2005 it held that the Minister was vicariously liable for the actions of three on-duty policemen who raped a stranded 20-year-old woman. And in 2011 the Minister was held vicariously liable for damages after the brutal rape of a 13-year-old by a policeman on standby duty.

Almost 10 years after a Northern Cape salt company was forced off the premises of the Vrysoutpan near Upington the SCA has ruled that SA Soutwerke is indeed liable for the damages caused by its actions. A Rapport report notes that former ANC provincial leader John Block was a director of SA Soutwerke when the company used a forged mining permit to take control of the salt mining site. Saamwerk Soutwerke could not mine between September 2008 and June 2011 and claimed damages of R30m.

A man who was a passenger in a car crash is to get about R5.4m from the Road Accident Fund, says a Netwerk24 report. Gerhardus Johannes Brits (28) sustained severe brain injuries and several facial fractures when the bakkie crashed into the back of another vehicle and he was thrown through the windscreen. He had claimed R9.2m from the fund.