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/ 20 February 2008
Over R10-billion will be spent on strengthening the police force and judiciary over the next three years, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel said in his budget speech on Wednesday. There would be more than 200Â 000 police officers by the end of March 2011, up 22% from the 163Â 000 police officers in 2006/07.
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/ 18 February 2008
The acting head of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Mokotedi Mpshe, on Monday said he was puzzled by statements saying the Scorpions are to be ”disbanded” on the one hand, and ”dissolved” on the other, the South African Broadcasting Corporation reported.
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/ 15 February 2008
United States President George Bush cited the London July 7 bombings in an interview broadcast on Thursday night to justify his support for waterboarding, an interrogation technique widely regarded as torture. In an interview with the BBC he said information obtained from alleged terrorists helped save lives
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/ 14 February 2008
Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille is to request a meeting with African National Congress president Jacob Zuma to discuss the future of the Scorpions, she said on Thursday. ”I intend to put this challenge to him. I will write to Mr Zuma and request an urgent meeting to state unambiguously the disastrous consequences that disbanding the Scorpions will have for South Africa.”
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/ 14 February 2008
”A disgrace”, ”Answers needed” and ”Crushing more than the Scorpions” was how some newspaper editorials reacted on Thursday to Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula’s announcement in Parliament that the Scorpions would be dissolved.
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/ 12 February 2008
South Africa’s elite, FBI-style Scorpions anti-crime unit will be dissolved, Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula said on Tuesday. ”The Scorpions … will be dissolved and the organised crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new, amalgamated unit will be created,” Nqakula told Parliament in Cape Town.
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/ 29 January 2008
A Zimbabwean tribunal has begun proceedings to decide whether the nation’s Attorney General should be removed from office for allegedly abusing his power in a case involving a fugitive banker, state media said on Tuesday. Attorney General Sobusa Gula-Ndebele was suspended in December after police charged him with corruption.
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/ 25 January 2008
High-profile criminal cases involving senior South African officials have renewed fears among opposition parties and the legal community that judicial independence may be at risk. President Thabo Mbeki’s government has had a testy relationship with the judiciary.
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/ 22 January 2008
A KwaZulu-Natal pilot project — proven to reduce court backlogs and overcrowding in prisons drastically — may be rolled out countrywide, if the government comes to the table with funding, the Justice and Constitutional Development Department said on Tuesday.
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/ 16 January 2008
Suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has objected to government’s request for an extension to file its submissions to the Ginwala Commission of Inquiry. A copy of a letter, sent by Pikoli’s law firm Denys Reitz to inquiry head Frene Ginwala, was released to the media late on Tuesday. Earlier on Tuesday, Ginwala herself criticised government for its ”slow response” and failure to deliver its submission on time.
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/ 15 January 2008
The Ginwala Commission of Inquiry into suspended National Director of Public Prosecutions Vusi Pikoli has criticised the government for its ”slow response” and failure to deliver its submission on time. In a statement on Tuesday, inquiry head Frene Ginwala said she had ”reluctantly” granted the government a 10-day extension.
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/ 14 January 2008
Charges against Gerrie Nel, the head of the Directorate of Special Operations, or the Scorpions, in Gauteng, were withdrawn in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday. ”After careful consideration of the evidence in the docket, the decision was made to withdraw the charges,” chief prosecutor Matric Lupondo said during Nel’s brief appearance.
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/ 14 January 2008
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s legal team were on Monday waiting for a date for a hearing for his application to stop the investigation against him, after last week’s attempt to have it heard urgently failed. ”The judge president must provide a date for a full bench,” said Selebi’s advocate Jaap Cilliers.
The government revised its submission to the Ginwala inquiry into the suspension of National Prosecuting Authority boss Vusi Pikoli after its first draft did not contain enough information, a media report said on Wednesday. The report said Pikoli’s advocate Wim Trengove had complained that the government’s submission was ”too bare”.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has awarded a hefty salary hike to Zimbabwe’s magistrates and prosecutors, who have been on strike since October, official media reported on Sunday. Zimbabwean workers have been hit hard by an economic crisis critics blame on Mugabe’s policies and has seen inflation jump to nearly 8 000%, the highest in the world.
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/ 17 December 2007
Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has pardoned the victim of a gang-rape, whose sentencing to 200 lashes caused an international outcry, a Saudi newspaper said on Monday. The Justice Minister Abdullah bin Mohammad al-Sheikh said the king had the right to issue pardons if it was in the ”public interest”.
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/ 14 December 2007
After a protracted delay, South Africa’s tough new laws against sexual abuse will finally enter force on Sunday. The Justice and Constitutional Development Ministry said on Friday that the Sexual Offences Amendment Act will at last give greater protection to victims of sexual crimes.
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/ 6 December 2007
An overstretched judiciary is hampering attempts to prosecute those responsible for mining accidents, South Africa’s minerals and energy minister said on Thursday. Mining companies in South Africa, the world’s top source of platinum and gold, are under pressure to improve safety at mines, where about 200 workers have been killed this year.
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/ 6 December 2007
Police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi’s office did not want to comment on the plea bargaining and 10-year suspended sentence for drug trafficking handed down to Glenn Agliotti on Wednesday. Spokesperson Director Sally de Beer said: ”You must have noticed it was a Scorpions’ case so you will have to phone them.”
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/ 28 November 2007
A British teacher detained in Sudan after her class called a teddy bear Muhammad was charged on Wednesday with insulting Islam in a move that sparked a diplomatic row. Gillian Gibbons (54) was also charged with inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs. If convicted, she could face 40 lashes, a fine or one year in jail.
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/ 28 November 2007
A Dutch conservative lawmaker said on Wednesday he is making a film to highlight what he describes as ”fascist” passages in the Qur’an, his latest high profile criticism of Islam. Wilders plans to depict parts of the Qur’an he says are used as inspiration ”by bad people to do bad things”.
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/ 28 November 2007
A sacked Transnet human resources manager who took her case all the way to the Constitutional Court will have to start again by seeking arbitration, the court ruled on Wednesday. Petronella Chirwa worked as a human resources manager for the Transnet pension-fund business unit.
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/ 27 November 2007
The commission appointed to investigate whether National Prosecution Authority head Vusi Pikoli was fit to hold office on Monday held a meeting with Department of Justice and Constitutional Development officials and Pikoli in a bid to expedite the investigation, the commission said on Tuesday.
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/ 26 November 2007
In 2005 I spoke to a traumatised filmmaker who had returned from the Democratic Republic of Congo where he interviewed a 19-year-old woman who 18 months before had been raped by 49 soldiers, one after the other. The pregnant teenager was then shot in the belly by the soldiers, killing her baby and rendering her sterile, writes journalist Charlene Smith.
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/ 20 November 2007
Ben Mafani never met Piet Koornhof, who died this week at the age of 82. But he hopes to come face to face with Koornhof in the life hereafter, because he has a question for the apartheid-era Cabinet minister. Mafani wants to know why he, his family, and thousands of other people were forcibly removed from ”white” South Africa three decades ago.
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/ 20 November 2007
Japan began fingerprinting foreigners entering the country on Tuesday in an anti-terrorism policy that has sparked complaints from human right activists, business travellers and long-term residents. Some foreign visitors arriving at Narita were unfazed by the new procedures, which involve electronic scanning of both index fingers.
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/ 19 November 2007
The Israeli Cabinet on Monday approved the release of nearly 450 Palestinian prisoners as a goodwill gesture to president Mahmoud Abbas ahead of a United States-sponsored peace meet, a senior official said. "The government approved the proposal by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to release up to 500 Palestinian prisoners," the official said on condition of anonymity.
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/ 19 November 2007
Sudan has formally charged 28 opposition politicians and army officers with plotting to overthrow the government, more than four months after they were arrested, their supporters said on Monday. The 28, including the head of the opposition Umma Party for Reform and Renewal, Mubarak al-Fadil, were taken from their homes at gunpoint in July.
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/ 17 November 2007
About 500 members of the South African Communist Party (SACP), and farm workers marched through the streets of Rustenburg on Saturday, protesting against the state of clinics and hospitals, as well as living conditions on farms. The march was part of the SACP’s Red October programme, which focused on public health institutions.
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/ 15 November 2007
Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata, on paid leave while on trial on a drunk-drinking charge, will have received more than R1-million when his case resumes next year. Moneyweb reported on Thursday that Motata is getting a full judge’s salary while on special leave.
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/ 9 November 2007
A divided United States Senate confirmed retired judge Michael Mukasey as Attorney General on Thursday, setting aside concerns he might support interrogation methods decried worldwide as torture. On a largely party-line vote of 53-40, the Senate approved his nomination to succeed Alberto Gonzales.
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/ 7 November 2007
Police torture and brutality are rife and High Court orders are openly disregarded in Zimbabwe, pointing to a ”grave constitutional crisis”, according to a report released on Wednesday. The most worrying aspect is open attacks on members of the legal profession, said advocate Andrea Gabriel.