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Return Iranian businessman’s passport, high court tells Kenya’s tax authorities

WHEN Iranian businessman Seyed Khavidaki took on Kenya’s tax authorities, not many people would have put money on a bet that he would win. He is, after all, the Kenya country representative of an outfit that allegedly owes Kshs188-m in tax and he is also the only avenue through which the revenue authority can reach the company concerned which has its base in the United Arab Emirates. To keep him in the country, Kenya’s official confiscated Khavidaki’s passport and issued a notice prohibiting him from leaving the country. But he has won at least a temporary victory, with the court ordering his passport returned and the prohibition notice lifted – pending resolution of the tax dispute.

Why does Kenya’s Law School keep making the same legal mistake, asks judge?

IF anyone could be expected to understand judicial precedent it should surely be a country’s law school. After all, this is the body with responsibility for ensuring that the next generation of lawyers understands this crucial, basic concept. But the Kenya School of Law keeps getting it wrong.

Newspaper report leads to judge’s intervention

POLITICAL leaders often refuse to act on the basis of “mere” newspaper reports. But not Zimbabwean judge Alphas Chitakunye. He spotted a story in the media about a magistrates court trial and immediately asked for the record in the case as he feared an injustice had been done.

Recusals in Swaziland and Lesotho: cause for concern?

RECUSAL of judges – when they should stand down, when not and if judges are always properly deciding whether to hear a case – has emerged as a serious issue in both Lesotho and Swaziland. In both those jurisdictions, decisions about recusal have left litigants worried that, with no judges available to hear their matters, they could have no access to justice.

A country waits: when will Zimbabwe’s constitutional court give its long-delayed decision?

PROMPT delivery of decisions is seen as so important that some African countries even discipline judges who do not give judgments within a reasonable time. But in Zimbabwe, the constitutional court has still failed to hand down a crucial judgment two years and eight months after hearing. This in a country where the maximum delay tolerated by the judicial code of ethics is six months.

The eight allegations against Lesotho’s Chief Justice Nthomeng Majara, and their context

LIKE the former president of Lesotho’s highest court, the Chief Justice may be seen as a victim of the clash between two competing political interest groups: there is now an established pattern in terms of which one party or interest group makes a top judicial appointment and then, when the other grouping gets into power, it seeks to get rid of that jurist and put its own candidate in place. But while this may be the reasoning behind the drive to get rid of top judges, what are the public reasons given by the Maseru government for wanting to suspend and investigate the present Chief Justice?

Lesotho, Namibia, SA judges in controversial recusal decisions

CONCERN and confusion about recusal decisions by judges in the region continued this week. Most significant of these cases was a startling high court order against the chief justice of Lesotho. It was granted by the judge appointed as acting chief justice in her place who, in other jurisdictions, might have been expected to recuse herself. Other cases involving controversial recusal decisions this week come from SA and Namibia. These cases follow our report last week of mounting unease about a series of controversial decisions by judges in Swaziland on whether or when to recuse themselves.

Court bars suspended Chief Justice from entering Palace of Justice

IN a week of high drama, the Chief Justice of Lesotho has been ordered by the high court to stay out of the Palace of Justice and not to carry out any functions relating to her office. This follows her suspension, in apparent defiance of two court orders barring the government from taking steps to ask that the King suspend her.

When courts must be parents

SOMETIMES a court is called on to act as a parent might, and resolve the problems of difficult children. Seldom, though, will two courts in the same country, less than 100 km apart, both hand down such a decision on the same day. But this is exactly what happened in Kenya where two judges both had to deal with errant scholars. The judges found different solutions to the problems before them: one allowed the suspended scholar to write exams at the school, but under strict conditions; the other refused to let the boy involved back onto the campus at all.

When “straying” courts need to be “reined in"

HERE is a rare situation: three judges of Swaziland’s highest legal forum, the supreme court, confessing they are at a loss to understand what is happening in the courts below. This after two high court judges issued contradictory orders in relation to a bail hearing and the supreme court was asked to intervene and sort out the mess. Did the supreme court have the power to do so? It was a novel question, testing certain of its constitutional powers for the first time.