The role of judicial leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic will be critical. We don’t have a single judiciary, or at least not yet – and the different parts of the South African justice system are responding differently.
In many African countries a special ceremony is held during January to mark the start of the official court year. No such tradition has yet developed in South Africa. But the 2020 legal year got off to a spectacular start all the same: the deputy judge president of the high court in one of SA's biggest provinces issued an affidavit making sensational claims against the judge president and his wife, who is also a judge in the same division.
Read affidavit by Patricia Goliath DJP
Perhaps the biggest shock I have ever experienced while writing about judges and the law in South Africa, was the day I heard that the judge president of the Western Cape, John Hlophe, was in trouble with the Constitutional Court, South Africa’s apex legal forum.
The South African government is amending the law concerning customary marriages to bring it in line with constitutional jurisprudence. On 24 July 2019, Cabinet approved the submission of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Amendment Bill of 2019 to Parliament. The Bill is currently under consideration by the National Assembly. Fasken candidate attorney Mr. Selby Mathebula writes about these changes.
On 24 July 2019, Cabinet approved the submission of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Amendment Bill of 2019 to Parliament. The Bill is currently under consideration by the National Assembly.
