Latest Articles

All years
Local shooting club targets Namibian defence force

In a bizarre case, due to be heard in the Namibian courts next week, the country’s defence force is alleged to have taken over the premises of a private shooting club outside the town of Rehoboth just before Christmas. The club says the army changed the locks and warned that the site is now off limits to the public as it is a “military zone” – all of this without notice or warning. The club is fighting back against this military might, by making an application for a spoliation order. Members say unless the dispute is heard urgently, their charitable work in the local community will be decimated and their other club activities will also be halted. The club’s officials claim that the defence force has taken the law into its own hands and that the club’s rights are being violated.

Copyright & A2K Issues - 7 June 2019

This is a free online international Information Service covering various topics, including copyright, plagiarism and other IP matters, Open Access, open publishing, open learning resources, institutional repositories, scholarly communication, digitization and library matters, mobile technologies, issues affecting access to knowledge (A2K), particularly in developing countries; WTO and WIPO treaties and matters; Free Trade Agreements and TRIPS Plus; useful websites, conference alerts, etc.  Archives are available at:  http://www.africanlii.org/content/copyright-a2k-information .  If you would like to subscribe to, or unsubscribe from, this newsletter, please do so at:  http://lists.wits.ac.za/mailman/listinfo/copyrightanda2kinfo    or email  Denise.Nicholson@wits.ac.za  only (N.B. PLEASE DO NOT SEND TO WHOLE MAILING LIST)

Death sentence or 7 years for the same offence? – Kenya’s conflicted Penal Code
Death sentence or 7 years for the same offence? – Kenya’s conflicted Penal Code

When a death row prisoner has his date with the executioner commuted and starts a lifelong relationship with the inside of a prison instead, he will usually continue to explore every avenue to escape a prolonged life behind bars. Those explorations seldom amount to anything, but in the case of two prisoners waiting out their life-term in a jail in Kenya, luck – and a failure of Parliament to sort out a conflict of laws – was on their side.

We’ll protect you, Brazil’s supreme court tells gays; we won’t, say Kenya’s judges
We’ll protect you, Brazil’s supreme court tells gays; we won’t, say Kenya’s judges

Kenya’s high court has dealt a serious blow to that country’s gay community, by ruling that penal code provisions punishing “gay sex” are constitutionally valid. But judges in other parts of the world are meanwhile playing a far more pro-active role in protecting gay people who come under attack merely because of their sexual orientation. The latest court to offer protection to gays and transgender people is Brazil’s Supreme Court.

Diplomatic immunity challenge for five-state Southern African Customs Union
Diplomatic immunity challenge for five-state Southern African Customs Union

The Southern African Customs Union is the world’s oldest. Based in Windhoek, its origins date back to 1889. It was formally established in 1910 and forms a crucial commercial link between South Africa and all its immediate neighbours: Botswana, Namibia, eSwatini (formerly Swaziland) and Lesotho. It is also a union liable to stir strong commercial and other feelings. Most recently, it was the subject of an international law dispute, heard in the high court, Namibia, involving not just the union, but most of its individual members as well. As this analysis from Legalbrief Africa explains, the case concerns the claim by Clear Enterprises (CE), a transport outfit based in Botswana, that South Africa does not honour its obligations towards other members of the union. CE wanted to bring an action against the union, forcing it to make SA act towards its members as CE believes it should. But how could CE do so, when the customs union has been granted absolute immunity by the host state, Namibia?

Meet the people behind Jifa's judicial training courses
Meet the people behind Jifa's judicial training courses

Have you never been on a course offered by the Judicial Institute for Africa (Jifa), though you would like to? Do you read Jifa’s weekly newsletter and wonder at the people and the organization behind it? Would you like to know how to get more involved in the work of the Institute? The upcoming conference of the Africa regional bloc of the International Association of Judges being held in Cape Town next week gives you the perfect opportunity to meet us and have all these questions answered.

How a star liquidator fell from his perch
How a star liquidator fell from his perch

The fortunes of one of South Africa’s most prominent and successful liquidators, Enver Motala, have suddenly and rapidly declined, with his business ethics and behaviour called into question. Now the Supreme Court of Appeal has made it clear: his “disgraceful and dishonest” conduct means that its judges will not overturn the decision by the Master of the High Court to remove him from the panel of liquidators appointed to settle the affairs of companies in liquidation. Here is a story about his rise and fall, seen through the lens of the new court decision, from which readers may well conclude that he would be wasting his time to appeal any further.

Crucial meeting on judicial independence in Africa: June 2 - 6, 2019
Crucial meeting on judicial independence in Africa: June 2 - 6, 2019

Leading members of the judiciary across Africa will be gathering in Cape Town, 2 – 6 June 2019, and their focus will be on a crucial issue challenging judges from virtually every part of the continent: judicial independence and everything that promotes or hinders it.

High-ranking accused in "scurrilous" bid to remove foreign judges from Lesotho cases
High-ranking accused in "scurrilous" bid to remove foreign judges from Lesotho cases

When Judge Charles Hungwe from Zimbabwe arrived in Lesotho earlier this year to start work on a series of controversial trials, he was given a warm reception in the local media. But since then the accused in some of the cases over which he was due to preside proved rather less than welcoming. In fact, 16 accused initially due to stand trial before him, led by Lesotho's former defence minister, Tseliso Mokhosi, have brought an application for his appointment – and the appointment of all other foreign judges who might hear the pending cases – to be declared unconstitutional.

End of the road for Ghana Bank official, sacked after taking King’s cash by cab for depositing
End of the road for Ghana Bank official, sacked after taking King’s cash by cab for depositing

When you are summoned by His Majesty, Ghanaian King Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, courtesy demands that you attend as quickly as you can. But how could London banker Mark Frank Arthur, second most senior official of Ghana International Bank, have known that the summons, via the king’s wife, would lead to his dismissal from the bank – and, he now fears, to his becoming unemployable in the financial sector?