Legal Articles and Guides

After weeks of acrimony, protest actions, court cases and even a clash between the SABC hierarchy and the ANC, the curtain came down on the first act of the SABC censorship saga this week with the broadcaster’s management – at one point brash and defiant – apparently in disarray and facing costs orders, notes Daily News. The seven journalists who bore the brunt of the SABC’s animosity – they were suspended, fired, then turned away despite a Labour Court ruling before finally being reinstated when the broadcaster thought better about launching an appeal – are back at work. But the final act – a bid by the journalists to get Constitutional Court clarity on the role of the public broadcaster – has still to be played out.

The clash over Nkosana Makate’s payout from cellphone giant Vodacom has taken yet another nasty turn, says a Mail & Guardian Online report. This time, a senior advocate has landed up being the subject of a High Court application. Makate’s funders are questioning his experience as an arbitrator to preside over such a big money case. Michael Mabena SC was appointed by the chairperson of the Pretoria Bar Council to oversee a dispute between Makate and funders of his case against Vodacom.

If this week’s Labour Court decision had done nothing but reinstate dismissed senior staffers of the SABC, we would have celebrated. But it did a whole lot more than that, writes legal commentator Carmel Rickard in her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief Today site. By threatening those responsible for dismissing the journalists with having to pay the legal costs on a punitive scale and out of their own pockets, the decision will help sober up officials who recklessly spend public money on unwinnable, anti-constitutional litigation.

The battle between shareholder activist Dave Woollam and the directors of Lewis Stores has escalated, with the lodging of papers at the Western Cape High Court that could result in the minority shareholder having the directors declared delinquent. A Business Day report says if successful, the court action will propel shareholder activism to new and more aggressive levels. Woollam’s application is in terms of section 165 of the Companies Act, described by a corporate lawyer as the most potent weapon available to minority shareholders. The Act enables a shareholder to ask a court to appoint a third party to investigate a company. Four directors of Lewis Stores are facing charges of delinquency that if confirmed could end their careers, notes the report. 

ANC chair in the Western Cape, Marius Fransman, has abandoned his court bid to get his job back after he was informed that disciplinary processes will be instituted against him, his lawyer Ashley Meyer confirmed yesterday (Thursday). ‘We’ve now served a formal notice of withdrawal of our court application,’ Meyer is quoted as saying in a report on the IoL site. Fransman turned to the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday, and was granted an order compelling his party to provide him with the report of an internal integrity commission which investigated sexual harassment allegations against him. Fransman, who has been accused of sexually harassing 21-year-old Louisa Wynand while they were travelling to Rustenburg in January, was suspended pending a disciplinary inquiry.

A significant media victory was scored by Carte Blanche when it gained access to the taxation of an attorney-client bill of costs in the Palace of Justice in Pretoria. Last week Ronald Bobroff & Partners (RBP) sought to claim R2.1m in fees from its client, road accident victim Etienne Rubbers. RBP was placed under curatorship when two of its three directors, Ronald and Darren Bobroff, fled the country for Australia in mid-March as fugitives from justice. Cora van der Merwe, a cost consultant retained by Rubbers, alleged that R1.9m stood to be taxed off. 

A Durban nurse says she is still battling to be compensated properly after she contracted HIV 13 years ago from a needle stick injury to her left thumb while attending to a patient at the private hospital where she worked, says a report in The Mercury. The nurse claims the hospital’s insurer, the Compensation Fund, deemed that she was only 15% disabled, and paid her accordingly, and is now rejecting her appeals to reconsider because of her declining health and inability to work.

Former Minerals and Energy and Justice Minister Penuell Maduna (64) is embroiled in a legal battle to stop the millions he is owed from a broad-based BEE deal with petrochemicals giant Sasol from ending up in the hands of his ex-wife, Nompumelelo Maduna, says a Sunday Times report. He clinched the Sasol deal just two years after leaving the Cabinet in 2004. Maduna – now vice-chair at law firm Bowman Gilfillan – filed urgent papers in the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) recently to stop Nompumelelo gaining control of about R18m in dividends scheduled to be paid out by Sasol this month. The court dismissed the urgency of the application, striking it off the court roll and saying that Maduna had not given Nompumelelo (61) and the other five respondents sufficient time to 'digest’ the 690 pages of his founding affidavit. 

The battle between the Gupta family and irate residents of Saxonwold over an ‘illegally built’ mansion that was allegedly devaluing the upmarket Johannesburg suburb resumed this week, with City of Johannesburg officials stepping in to conduct their own inspections. The Mercury reports residents want the properties demolished as they are in contravention of the town planning scheme. Joining city officials during the inspection of the property was a lawyer representing the Gupta family, and urban planner Craig Pretorius, representing residents belonging to the Saxonwold and Parkwood Residents Association of Johannesburg (Sapra).