constitution

SA’s corruption woes are casting long shadows across the whole region. Highly improper decisions to “invest” in two discredited SA financial outfits, VBS Mutual Bank and Mamepe Capital, have led to the demise of a Namibian bank intended to provide banking facilities for Namibia’s small businesses and disadvantaged communities. The insolvency of the bank has in turn hit its two minorities shareholders, both from Zimbabwe. Lawyers for the Zimbabwe shareholders have tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade Namibia’s highest court not to wind up the bank.

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.