Legal Articles and Guides

A brother and sister went to court after their wealthy father made his caregiver a beneficiary in his will, effectively freezing them out of inheriting for 15 years, says a Cape Times report. The consequence of the decision by the late Jacobus Grimbeek was that his children would have to wait out the stipulated period before they could inherit from him.

"Arrests and detention are not measures our Constitution created to apply to juvenile offenders. While it is clear that children can still be arrested and detained, police officers should not be so quick to exercise these measures against minors," says Safura Abdool Karim, in an analysis of the Constitutional Court judgment in Raduvha v Minister of Safety and Security and Another on the GroundUp site.

Oscar Pistorius" legal team has filed papers in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) in response to the state"s application " to be heard next Friday (26 August) " for leave to appeal the six-year jail sentence the athlete received for murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The application by prosecutor Gerrie Nel claimed Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down a shockingly lenient sentence, but Pistorius" lawyers contend that there is no prospect of another court increasing the sentence.

The Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) has submitted representations to be friends of the court in what a Cape Times report calls a watershed court case interrogating the rights of same-sex couples after death. Represented by the Legal Resources Centre (LRC), the CGE made representations yesterday in the Constitutional Court as amicus curiae in the application for leave to appeal in the case of Laubscher NO versus Duplan and Another.

A 4½-month-old baby is to get his own advocate to represent him in a legal tug of war over his adoption. The Mercury reports this was the ruling of KZN High Court (Durban) Judge Phillip Nkosi in an urgent application which stayed an order that the child be immediately removed from the care of the couple who want to adopt him " and who have been looking after him since birth " and put in a place of safety.

The scope and magnitude of the proposed class actions envisaged in Nkala v Harmony Gold is unprecedented in SA; it will traverse novel and complex issues of fact and law, and help the development of class action law. This is the view of Werksmans Attorneys" Monique Pansegrouw, in an analysis in Business Day, in which she examines the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) judgment handed down in May in Nkala and Others v Harmony Gold Mining Company Limited and Others.

Leave to appeal against a KZN High Court (Pietermaritzburg) decision to allow media houses to report on the disciplinary proceedings of 11 Department of Public Works employees relating to work on upgrades to President Jacob Zuma"s Nkandla home was dismissed yesterday, notes a report in The Mercury. The employees were seeking to appeal Judge Pete Koen"s ruling two months ago that the allegations that they collectively breached legislation governing their employment were matters of public interest.

A woman"s tryst with her married lover turned into a nightmare when a night of passion was interrupted and she was not only chased down the street naked and assaulted by the man"s wife and sister, but footage of her ordeal captured on video was later published on the front page of a newspaper. The Mercury reports Rose Mashiane subsequently instituted a R1m damages claim in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) against Thabisile Tibane and Lindiwe Masemola.

While many brand-holders adopt an aggressive approach and pursue criminal action against so-called counterfeiters under the Counterfeit Goods Act, the Criminal Procedure Act provides very useful procedural tools with which to flush out counterfeit kingpins " ironically with the assistance of their own partners in crime, says Adams & Adams Attorneys" Jan-Harm Swanepoel, in an analysis in Business Day.

Politically connected businessman Kuben Moodley stands to rake in R380m from a suspect debt-collection deal with the SABC authorised by the broadcaster"s acting CE, James Aguma, according to a Sunday Times report. It notes Moodley is a former special adviser to Mineral Resources Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and golf partner of Salim Essa, a kingpin in the Gupta empire.

One of the former City Press journalists who brought a lawsuit against Media24 and its former editor Ferial Haffajee says he did not sign any settlement agreement regarding the court action. According to a report on the IoL site, the lawsuit was launched in in 2014 by Mawande Mvumvu, Khanyiso Tshwaku, Muntu Vilakazi and Denvor de Wee who accused Haffajee of defaming them by branding them as racists during a staff meeting in 2013.

US authorities have implicated Cape Town multimillionaire Walter Hennig, an associate of politician-businessman Tokyo Sexwale, in the bribery of officials of three African countries for mining rights, notes a Business Day report. It says Hennig"s Palladino Holdings entered a joint venture named Africa Management with US hedge fund Och-Ziff Capital Management Group and Sexwale"s Mvelaphanda Holdings in 2008 to invest in natural resources.

A judge hearing a billion-rand South Coast land claim cracked the whip yesterday, banning an aggressive troublemaker " a disbarred attorney " from her courtroom and ordering community representatives to publicly apologise to their lawyers for making "racial slurs" against them, says a report in The Mercury, And in an attempt to finalise the matter " which involves 1 800ha of land and has been dragging on for 16 years " Land Claims Judge Shenaaz Meer ordered both sides to meet next week and "be realistic" in their negotiations.

Electricity tariffs are in limbo after Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) Judge Cynthia Pretorius yesterday set aside a decision by the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) to grant Eskom an effective 9.4% increase for 2016 on the grounds that neither Eskom nor Nersa had complied with the prescribed methodology for interim tariff increases, notes Daily News.

The danger of defaming someone on Facebook was again highlighted in a damages claim instituted by Paul Hechter, whose name was "dragged in the mud" following a run-in with his neighbour, says a report in The Mercury. Hechter said in papers before the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) that he was accused of being a Peeping Tom, a pervert and a paedophile.