If you were born in South Africa to non-citizens you can apply to be a citizen By Tania Broughton It has taken four years of legal battles, but now if you were born in South Africa to foreign parents you can apply for citizenship. It has been an “agonizing journey” for those who consider South Africa to be their only home. The Department of...

INAUGURAL ANNUAL SOCIAL JUSTICE LECTURE SOCIAL JUSTICE AND ECONOMIC INCLUSION: WHERE TO SOUTH AFRICA? Speaker: Judge President Dennis Davis 20 February 2020 18:30 for 19:00 RSVP before or on 10 February 2020 socialjustice@sun.ac.za | +27 (21) 808 3186 Attie van Wijk Auditorium, Room 2031 Faculty of Theology SU, 171 Dorp Street, Stellenbosch Refreshments to be served prior to the event

Refusal by government to provide it was “unlawful and invalid” says judge By Elna Schütz The Department of Correctional Services (DCS) and the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services must release a report on alleged torture of inmates by prison personnel at Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein. The Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) has successfully applied to be given access to an...

Date for implementation still to be set By Barbara Maregele The long awaited regulations for sexual offences courts were signed and will be gazetted this week. On Thursday, Advocate Praise Kambula from the department confirmed that the regulations had been signed but said they were yet to set a date for implementation. Rape Crisis, through its Rape Survivors’ Justice Campaign (RSJC), has for several years been...

This is up from 87 at the end of 2018 By Liezl Human The South African judiciary published a national report on reserved judgments across all South African courts, dated 30 September. The report shows that at the beginning of the fourth term of 2019 there were 103 reserved judgments outstanding for longer than six months and, overall, 683 reserved judgments outstanding. A previous report by the...

AMCU challenged sections of the Labour Relations Act By Wilmien Wicomb When a union negotiates a retrenchment agreement with an employer, should this be binding on employees who are not members of the union? The Constitutional Court ruled on this last week. The court found that in some circumstances the answer is yes. An employer can finalise a retrenchment agreement with a majority union...

City of Tshwane asked to provide land suitable not only for living but for work  By Elna Schütz Wastepickers facing eviction from land in Centurion are arguing that the City of Tshwane must provide not only alternative housing but space for their materials. The group of 200, some of whom have lived and worked in the area for 15 years or more, want...

Makhanda High Court declares new school admission policy unconstitutional By Geoffrey Allsop Eastern Cape children who were prevented from attending school because they do not have identity documents won an important victory in the Makhanda High Court in December. Read the judgment In 2016, the Eastern Cape Basic Education Department introduced a new admission policy which said public schools would only receive funding for...

Ban on political activity is “illegal, unconstitutional and contrary to the UN convention on refugees” By Tania Broughton South Africa’s new rules governing asylum seekers and refugees could easily have been drafted by the Trump administration, says Sharon Ekambaram of Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR). The regulations, which forbid refugees and asylum seekers from engaging in any political activity, even if it concerns...

The Supreme Court of Appeal awarded the family of the five-year-old almost R1.5 million for the “appalling and undignified death” Komape suffered by drowning in a pit latrine at school. By Tania Broughton The family of five-year-old Michael Komape has been awarded R1.4 million in damages for “psychiatric injuries” they suffered as a result of his “appalling and undignified death” when...