Nine senior advocates from the Cape Bar, some of them former acting judges, have publicly called on Cape Judge President John Hlophe to quit. ”We believe that there cannot be public confidence in the continuation in office now of Judge Hlophe,” they said in a letter published on Tuesday.
The Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that President Thabo Mbeki did have the power to sack former National Intelligence Agency director general Billy Masetlha. The president had the power to terminate his employment under section 209(2) of the Constitution, read with section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act.
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The Constitutional Court ruling on Tuesday dismissing Schabir Shaik’s application to appeal his conviction and sentence for corruption and fraud may have cleared the way for presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma to face corruption charges again, the latest twist in a political drama gripping the country.
Schabir Shaik, former financial adviser to Jacob Zuma, on Tuesday lost his final appeal against fraud and corruption charges and a 15-year prison sentence. Shaik’s appeal to bring new evidence was dismissed and the court ruled that his trial was not unfair.
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/ 24 September 2007
Madagascar’s ruling party has won all seats in the capital, Antananarivo, in legislative polls held at the weekend, the Interior Ministry said on Monday. President Marc Ravalomanana’s TIM (I Love Madagascar) party won in all six constituencies, setting it on a path to retain a majority in the 127-member Parliament.
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/ 23 September 2007
Madagascans vote on Sunday for the Indian Ocean island’s Parliament, with President Marc Ravalomanana’s party tipped to continue its domination of the Assembly. Ravalomanana dissolved Parliament in July, saying it no longer reflected national representation after a new Constitution was passed in April.
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/ 22 September 2007
The confectionery giant Ferrero has been left with a bitter taste in its mouth after being banned from keeping its monopoly over the word ”kinder”, German for ”children”, on its popular Kinder Surprise eggs. The ruling by a German court ended a lengthy battle between sweet manufacturers that had raged for years.
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/ 20 September 2007
A string of senior advocates acting for state institutions opposed an application by Khutsong residents in the Constitutional Court on Thursday. Outside, police fired rubber bullets at residents protesting against their municipality, Merafong, being included in North West province.
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/ 20 September 2007
The controversial Constitution 13th Amendment Bill was passed in the National Assembly on Thursday, despite opposition from the Democratic Alliance and the Inkatha Freedom Party, among others. The Bill seeks to realign certain provincial borders to avoid municipal boundaries straddling them.
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/ 20 September 2007
Police fired rubber bullets at Khutsong residents protesting outside the Constitutional Court on Thursday. More than 1 000 protesters scattered into the streets of Braamfontein in Johannesburg but some later regrouped again, protesting outside the court against their municipality being included in North West province.
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/ 19 September 2007
Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula was on Wednesday granted leave by the Pretoria High Court to appeal against a ruling that he rebuild the shacks of a group of squatters or face arrest. The minister was also once again ordered to rebuild some of the demolished shacks before noon on Friday.
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/ 14 September 2007
The Independent Democrats (ID) came out winners on Friday in a last-minute flurry of applications to the Cape High Court by ID defectors to retain their seats. The party said bids by four former ID local councillors in the Western Cape to keep their seats were rejected by the court with costs. Two of the four were members of the Cape Town city council.
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/ 12 September 2007
There is background to why Dali Mpofu, supremo at the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), announced last week that the broadcaster was severing ties with the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef). On the SABC side, the broadcaster’s leadership sees itself as a ”responsible” player in nation-building and promoting the ”national interest”.
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/ 11 September 2007
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s statement concerning dual-therapy HIV treatment was a ”gross distortion of the truth”, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said on Tuesday. According to Tshabalala-Msimang, a 2001 court judgement limited her department to implementing only monotherapy nevirapine to HIV-positive pregnant mothers.
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/ 7 September 2007
The Democratic Alliance (DA) is looking at the legality of the Tshwane metro council’s reported ban on ”white businesses”, and the matter could even end up in the Constitutional Court, DA leader Helen Zille said on Friday. ”Such a resolution amounts to naked racism and flies in the face of the Constitution,” she said in her weekly online newsletter, SA Today.
After meting out a severe tongue-lashing over the behaviour of the state attorney and director general of justice’s offices on Thursday, the Constitutional Court said it wanted to issue an order making them accountable for their work. ”I have a deep intolerance for state officials who are paid to do their work and don’t do it,” said Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke.
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday reserved judgement in an application by residents of derelict inner-city buildings in Johannesburg against a Supreme Court of Appeal order in favour of their eviction. Deputy Chief Justice Moseneke urged the residents and the Johannesburg municipality to reach a settlement.
The Johannesburg municipality’s evictions of people from derelict buildings should be declared in breach of the law, the Constitutional Court was told on Tuesday. The municipality should also be told to fix up its problems, submitted lawyer Geoff Budlender for the Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions, a Swiss-based NGO.
It was quite a week for Justin Nurse. The 27-year-old ”David” and his company, Laugh It Off, appeared in the Constitutional Court.