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In a most unusual judgment from Kenya, one that fits perfectly with March marking international women’s month, a judge has found that a woman who killed her husband acted in self-defence after years of violent abuse at his hands. The judge sentenced the woman to prison until the rising of the court and ordered that she should receive counselling to help her recover from the trauma of the long-term abuse inflicted by her husband.

South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng has been told to issue an apology and a retraction for a series of highly controversial comments he made in the middle of last year, criticising Pretoria’s policy on Israel. The decision plus the ‘remedial steps’ of apology and retraction were issued this week by the Judicial Conduct Committee of SA’s Judicial Service Commission. After a mid-2020 interview and subsequent comments defending the views he expressed, several official complaints were made to the JSC.

When a formerly high-ranking Namibian prison official won a high court battle over his salary it was a wake-up call for governments keen to ensure that corruption and other crime is properly punished within the ranks of the civil service. The message is: check your legislation because it might not be as water-tight as you thought. In this case, the assistant commissioner of correctional services pleaded guilty to the theft of a mobile phone at a disciplinary inquiry and was demoted to the rank of senior superintendent as a punishment.

As local and international concern grows over the Tanzanian government’s handling of Covid-19, a major international law firm has written to the Commonwealth Secretariat, suggesting that the time had come to consider expelling Tanzania from the Commonwealth. International human rights specialist firm, Amsterdam & Partners, said this was because, due to the policies of its president, John Magufuli, Tanzania was not living up to its undertakings as a member of the Commonwealth.