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/ 15 December 2003
While it may not be such a big deal to some, the new Constitutional Court opens on Monday December 15. It is just one part of the Constitutional Hill project, which will have cost about R460-million when completed in two years’ time. The project is on the site of the Old Fort prison or Number Four, as older (black) South Africans used to call it.
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/ 28 November 2003
The taxman has had enough of corrupt customs agents helping companies and individuals dodge the payment of import and export duties. SA Revenue Service Commissioner Pravin Gordhan will be calling a meeting with representatives of customs agents.
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/ 23 November 2003
On June 16 — almost unnoticed — the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Amendment Act of 2002 became law. The Act created equality courts, where ordinary people who believe they are victims of unfair discrimination can have their cases heard before a magistrate. These courts are at the risk of becoming white elephants.
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/ 21 November 2003
Private military companies — or mercenaries, as some prefer to call them –should play a bigger role as peace enforcers in conflict areas around the world, Wits University academic Natashia Chhiba argues. In her PhD thesis, Chhiba argues that the UN and AU should hire private armies to secure peace because they do not come with political baggage.
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/ 14 November 2003
South Africa accounts for between 96% and 99% of all cars reported stolen in Southern Africa. Of these, however, one in five is believed to be a fake hijacking, says the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). It is believed that car-owners cooperate with networks to ‘get rid of their vehicles’ and submit false insurance claims.
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/ 11 November 2003
Judges cannot, simply by virtue of their office, be trusted with dispensing justice in South African courts. In October we saw at least two examples of judges whose integrity was questioned, or whose pronouncements were not befitting of the ”your honour” status bestowed on them.
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/ 7 November 2003
It was the biggest double-header Cape Town had seen in a while. There was the arrival of a famed yet hitherto unseen beauty. And there was what the organisers, only by modesty, were prevented from proclaiming as the biggest maritime event since the parting of the Red Sea. Not since Diana, Princess of Wales, visited the city has Cape Town been so spellbound.
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/ 3 November 2003
Once upon a time, his mission was to ensure that there were houses for those who needed them and better roads for all. Today David Thebehali, the first mayor of Soweto, is a pastor at the Faithways Bible Church in Booysens, Johannesburg, but he is promising homes in heaven for believers and roads to salvation for all.
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/ 31 October 2003
The Hefer commission has established the real identity of agent R1 500 000. He is also known as one-and-a-half million rand. That is how much experts say the commission has cost in the seven days it has sat. The commission was established to determine whether National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy, and whether he has abused the National Prosecuting Authority.
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/ 27 October 2003
When the alleged Boeremag members return to the dock in the Pretoria High Court on Monday they will have with them an unseen and uncharged co-accused — the right to be presumed innocent and to have a fair trial.