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/ 18 February 2008
The Cape High Court on Monday dismissed an application for leave to appeal against an eviction order that compelled illegal occupiers of unfinished homes in Delft on the Cape Flats to vacate their houses by 6pm last Sunday. Judge Deon van Zyl ruled late on Monday that the grounds for appeal were altogether without merit.
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/ 17 February 2008
Pity the judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA). Fifteen years ago this court — then led by the chief justice — was the highest court of appeal in South Africa. The prestige and standing of the judges serving on this court were unchallenged among the majority of influential South African lawyers and judges, and academics pored over their decisions and wrote learned articles about their decisions.
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/ 14 February 2008
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma has asked the Constitutional Court to strike down a court ruling allowing seized documents to be used against him in a corruption case. Zuma and his lawyer Michael Hulley argued that prosecutors and investigators had acted illegally when they raided and seized documents.
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/ 14 February 2008
African National Congress (ANC) leader Jacob Zuma was in Mauritius on Wednesday in connection with the corruption case he faces. Zuma’s lawyer, Michael Hulley, confirmed by telephone from the Indian Ocean island that his client was meeting with legal representatives about documents that allegedly contain proof of bribes being solicited.
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/ 9 February 2008
The past few months have taught us a depressing lesson about the long and uncertain journey required by constitutional democracy. Foundational principles of accountability, transparency and the independent operation of institutions through which constitutional democracy is mediated, including the judiciary, are all under great pressure.
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/ 8 February 2008
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Friday dismissed an application by Dina Rodrigues for leave to appeal against her murder conviction. The SCA also refused an application for an order directing that an appeal against her sentence be heard by the Bloemfontein court.
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/ 1 February 2008
The alleged British mastermind of a foiled coup in Equatorial Guinea has been deported from Zimbabwe to Malabo, even though he was still appealing against his extradition, his lawyer said on Friday. Jonathan Samkange said he had only learned that Simon Mann had already been flown out of Harare on Friday morning.
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/ 31 January 2008
A court in Zimbabwe dismissed an appeal against the extradition of Simon Mann, a former British special forces officer accused of leading a coup plot to topple the government in the oil-rich West African nation of Equatorial Guinea, his lawyers said on Thursday. Mann’s lawyers had argued he would face torture and a likely death sentence if extradited Equatorial Guinea.
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/ 26 January 2008
A white Zimbabwean farmer has been ordered to vacate his farm after the Supreme Court dismissed his application to stop the government from acquiring it, the government mouthpiece Herald reported on Saturday. Justice Luke Malaba dismissed the constitutional challenge by Michael Campbell, a former owner of Mount Camel in Chegutu.
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/ 24 January 2008
Zambia’s Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the deportation of a British writer who described President Levy Mwanawasa as a ”fool”, saying the punishment sought was ”disproportionate” to the offence. The full Bench of the court said Roy Clarke should be allowed to stay in Zambia.
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/ 18 January 2008
Publishers of a popular Zimbabwean daily, which was ordered to close more than four years ago, have been invited to apply for authorisation to begin publishing again, government-run media said on Friday. The <i>Daily News</i> was a virulent critic of President Robert Mugabe’s government before being closed down in September 2003.
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/ 15 January 2008
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African National Congress president Jacob Zuma’s bid to have search-and-seizure raids declared unconstitutional will not derail the state’s case against him and French arms company Thint, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Tuesday.
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/ 10 January 2008
At least 22 Pakistani riot police were killed in a suicide-bomb attack outside the high court in the commercial heart of Lahore on Thursday, officers said. The bomber set off a device packed with ball bearings when police stopped him outside the court, two weeks to the day after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
South African HIV/Aids activist Zackie Achmat got married to his co-campaigner boyfriend at a ceremony attended by hundreds of guests, newspapers reported on Sunday. Achmat (45), founder and chairperson of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), the country’s main Aids lobby, married Dalli Weyers on Saturday at a colourful occasion near Cape Town.
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The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) on Tuesday denied that the decision to prosecute African National Congress president Jacob Zuma had been forced upon it by Zuma’s opponents. ”The decision has been made by the NPA and the NPA alone,” said NPA spokesperson Tlali Tlali in a statement.
Benazir Bhutto had planned to brief visiting American politicians about an alleged poll-rigging plot orchestrated by Pakistan’s intelligence agencies on the day she was killed, senior officials of her party said on Monday. Bhutto had obtained details of an Islamabad safe house run by the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency from where it intended to manipulate the poll.
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/ 27 December 2007
Indonesian rescuers on Thursday hunted for victims of landslides and floods on Java Island that have left more than 130 people feared dead and tens of thousands displaced, officials said. Landslides hit two districts in Central Java in the early hours of Wednesday morning, engulfing entire homes and blocking roads.
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/ 24 December 2007
Campaigners say they are eyeing legal action ”sooner rather than later” to block a bid to change Grahamstown’s name to iRhini. ”All such name changes have to be fully motivated and must reflect the views of the community,” one of the coordinators of the Keep Grahamstown Campaign said in a statement on Monday.
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/ 23 December 2007
It all sounds familiar. A newly proclaimed war in a far-off land, the suspension of habeas corpus, and mass arrests of ”potentially dangerous” individuals to protect the nation from ”treason, espionage and sabotage”. Those detained would eventually have the right to a hearing, but one not bound by the rules of law.
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/ 22 December 2007
Representatives of Nepal’s gay community on Saturday welcomed a decision by the country’s Supreme Court that directed the government to formulate laws for legal recognition of sexual minorities. The laws are to stop discrimination against them, according to the court ruling made on Friday.
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/ 18 December 2007
President Robert Mugabe’s government has amended security and media laws that critics say have helped him entrench his rule. The changes to the Public Order and Security Act were agreed at talks, brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki, between Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party and two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
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/ 15 December 2007
<a href="http://www.mg.co.za/specialreport.aspx?area=zuma_report"><img src="http://www.mg.co.za/ContentImages/243078/zuma.jpg" align=left border=0></a>New allegations against African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma have been included in an affidavit before the Constitutional Court, South African Broadcasting Corporation news reported on Friday. Johan du Plooy, a senior special investigator for the Scorpions, said investigations had uncovered substantial new evidence against Zuma.
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/ 14 December 2007
For the first time in more than 40 years a United States state is to abolish the death penalty. A 44-36 vote in the New Jersey legislature to abolish executions in the state on Thursday followed approval for the measure in the state senate on Monday.
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/ 14 December 2007
A court ruled on Thursday in favour of a white Zimbabwean farmer fighting a last-ditch bid against seizure of his land by his government. The case, which was the first to be tried by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) tribunal, was considered a test of the bloc’s commitment to justice and democracy.
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/ 8 December 2007
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Countering revenge will triumph over unity as the key challenge after the African National Congress’s (ANC) national conference in Limpopo, the South African Communist Party said on Saturday. Meanwhile, a failed high court bid to stop the ANC conference will now be taken to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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/ 8 December 2007
Three supporters of Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto were killed on Saturday when gunmen attacked her party’s office in a town in south-western Pakistan, police said, in the first reported deaths in the current election campaign. Police had no immediate information about the motive for the attack.
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/ 7 December 2007
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African National Congress (ANC) member Votani Majola was denied leave on Friday to appeal against a dismissed application to have the party’s 52nd national conference postponed. Majola returned to the Johannesburg High Court on Friday in a bid to have Judge Hilton Epstein allow him to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
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/ 7 December 2007
Pakistan’s two main opposition leaders have failed to overcome key differences preventing them forging a united front ahead of general elections in January, party officials said on Friday. Former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif will now have to meet again next week to try to hammer out an agreement, their parties said.
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/ 6 December 2007
A lone gunman killed eight people and wounded five others before taking his own life in Omaha, Nebraska, on Wednesday, the worst shooting in the United States since the Virginia Tech massacre earlier this year that left 33 dead. The killer, armed with a rifle, went on a rampage in a mall busy with Christmas shoppers.
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/ 2 December 2007
Venezuelans vote in a tightly contested referendum on Sunday on whether to allow left-wing President Hugo Chávez to stay in power for as long as he keeps winning elections or hand him his first defeat at the polls. The anti-American firebrand, who has easily won one election after another against a fragmented opposition, is in the hardest campaign of his life.
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/ 30 November 2007
Dina Rodrigues — jailed for life for the murder of six-month-old Jordan Leigh Norton — on Friday filed papers at the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal her conviction and sentence. The Cape High Court in June this year handed down life sentences to 26-year-old Rodrigues and two accomplices for the contract murder of baby Jordan.
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/ 29 November 2007
President Pervez Musharraf promised on Thursday to lift Pakistan’s state of emergency on December 16, making a long-awaited gesture of reconciliation hours after being sworn in as a civilian leader. Addressing the nation on television, Musharraf said he would also restore the Constitution, which was suspended when he declared emergency rule on November 3.