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Citing “canteen factor”, judge stops law firm from acting against its own client
Citing “canteen factor”, judge stops law firm from acting against its own client

WHEN a hacker found and used the password of bank employee Shakil Pathan Ismail he was short-paid for a year while police investigated. Then the bank went under and the financial institution that took over its assets and liabilities ended the staffer’s employment while denying they were responsible to sort out the problem of his hack-related short pay. So how was he to get his money? - He headed to Uganda’s Commercial Court where Judge David Wangutusi came to the rescue.

“You can’t charge me, I’m immune”: dismissed cabinet secretary

ANY judgment that concerns a country’s anti-corruption commission, is usually worth reading. But when it involves a case brought against the commission by a dismissed former cabinet minister now in the spotlight for abuse of office, it becomes just too tantalizing to miss – especially when the former top official claims he is untouchable.

Justice for Malawi's children

IN a “remarkable breakthrough”, the Malawi high court has come to the rescue of children illegally held in adult prisons. Some of the children were imprisoned in a jail where, according to an official 2016 parliamentary report, no food was available to inmates and where blankets were in short supply. As Carmel Rickard explains, the law says that children in trouble with the law may only be held in special places of safety or reformatories, and the court has now ordered the authorities to move the children within 30 days.

LGBTI Equality for a Fairer Future

Justice Dingake, Co-Chair of the African Think Tank on HIV, Health and Social Justice, highlights the ongoing prejudice against the LGBTI community across Africa, and calls on the Commonwealth to accelerate action for LGBTI equality and equitable access to services.

JIFA Newsflash #21 - Editorial - 31 August 2018
Top judges of world’s largest democracy strike down anti-gay sex law

INDIA’S highest court has struck down the country’s anti-gay sex law as unconstitutional. The decision, widely welcomed as conforming to a modern understanding of constitutionality and rights, was the result of India’s highest court, the supreme court, reconsidering the validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. The judgment, likely to be hugely influential worldwide, followed a 2013 decision of the same court when two judges upheld the Code. Earlier this year, however, the supreme court decided to revisit the issue, but with a larger bench.

Lost in the system: court admits it is to blame for man’s indefinite detention in mental asylum

IT sounds like a Kafka novel: a man found criminally insane and thus not responsible for a murder he committed, sent to an asylum for observation. Then he was forgotten for years. Now, he says the doctors have ruled he is sane and he wants to be released. But the minister who has to decide whether to release him was never informed he was there in the first place. This month, however, Uganda’s Court of Appeal admitted it was at fault for not informing the right authorities of the man’s hospitalization as it should have done, and that his fundamental rights might thus have been seriously infringed.

“Radical surgery” cutting off this judicial employee was unlawful – court

WHEN Edward Asitiba was sacked as Chief Supplies Officer in the Kenyan judiciary, he was told it was “in the public interest” that he should go. But Asitiba did not agree – and now he has a judgment backing his complaint, as well as a large payout due to him as compensation. Edward C. Asitiba v Attorney General [2018] eKLR

JIFA alum, Judge Derrick Mulenga of Zambia, delivers important workers' rights decision

WHEN does a union dispute become, fair and square, an issue of human rights and a test of the constitution? A recent decision by Judge Derrick Mulenga in Zambia’s high court makes a strong statement about this question: the court said the right of workers to belong to a union of their choice involved fundamental rights. These were constitutionally protected and part of an employee’s human rights. As a result, the mining company’s refusal to give official recognition to an additional trade union, and the several reasons it gave for not allowing workers to join, were all forcefully dismissed by the judge. Mbewe v Lumwana Co. Ltd. (IRC/SL/03/2018) [2018] ZMIC 292 (27 July 2018);

Judicial independence is critical to protecting press freedom in Africa

In this opinion piece, Anneke Meerkotter, Litigation Director of the Southern Africa Litigation Centre  (SALC), discusses a recent High Court of Lesotho (sitting as a Constitutional Court) judgment which declared the offence of criminal defamation unconstitutional. She takes the opportunity to also reflect more generally on the extent to which judiciaries have created the space for constitutional jurisprudence to be exercised in a manner that facilitates social transformation.