Concourt rules apartheid intimidation legislation unconstitutional

1982 law criminalised free speech By Zoë Postman In a unanimous judgment, read by Justice Leona Theron on Tuesday, the Constitutional Court declared Section 1(1)(b) of the Intimidation Act of 1982 unconstitutional and invalid because it unjustifiably limited the right to freedom of expression. The section of the Act states that persons will be guilty of an offence if they act in a...

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Asylum seeker wins right to marry

The Supreme Court of Appeal has declared Home Affairs’s prohibition on asylum seekers marrying unconstitutional By Muchengeti Hwacha If you are an asylum seeker whose application for asylum in terms of Section 21 of the Refugee Act has not been finalised, you are still permitted to enter into a marriage. The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) affirmed this in a judgment handed down in...

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The right to read

The Copyright Amendment Bill gives those with disabilities greater access to copyrighted material while supporting education and creators. But it is yet to be signed into law and not everyone is behind it. By Linda Daniels Leading copyright law experts and disability rights activists are advocating for President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign the Copyright Amendment Bill into law. They say the...

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SA has no reliable data on subsidised housing, says report

Centre for Affordable Housing Finance points to holes in data collection process By Drew Wayland The data on state subsidised houses is unreliable and incomplete, according to a report by the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa. The total number of completed houses dropped significantly in the last three years, but bad data makes the causes of such a decrease unclear. According...

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IPID scrambles to contain fall-out ahead of Parliament appearance

Watchdog to present annual report on Thursday following findings of statistical manipulation  By Daneel Knoetze The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) presents its annual report to Parliament on Thursday. The meeting will be overshadowed by revelations that IPID has a long track record of closing and completing cases prematurely to clear cases from the workload and inflate performance statistics. This week, following an exposé by...

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One in seven plants and animals in SA threatened with extinction, new report shows

Alien vegetation has a “severe impact” on biodiversity says SANBI By Madison Yauger One in seven of the thousands of plants and animals assessed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute in its latest four-year study is threatened with extinction. In its report, released on 3 October, SANBI found that well over 3,000 of the 23,312 indigenous species assessed have the potential to...

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City lawyers tell activist organisation to stop helping 80-year-old man facing eviction

Eviction of Kenneth Blaine escalates ideological battle between local government and Reclaim the City By Steve Kretzmann Lawyers representing the City of Cape Town have threatened legal action against activist organisation Reclaim The City unless it agrees, in writing, to not impede the City’s attempts to evict 80-year-old Kenneth Blaine from the council-owned house in Woodstock he has been living in for...

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New social grant system hurts the elderly, study finds

Long queues, no toilets: the closure of the old paypoints leaves pensioners in the lurch By Madison Yauger Every month an elderly woman called Nanna (surname withheld) pays R70 to have a taxi drive her around the mountain from Genadendal to Caledon before standing in a queue for upwards of two hours to collect her South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) social...

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