Supreme Court

The supreme court of India has slammed judges who impose ‘wholly inappropriate’ bail conditions in cases of sexual violence, like requiring that the accused visit the woman concerned and give her gifts. The court has also ordered that judges, lawyers and prosecutors must undergo gender sensitivity training to stop language and bail conditions that retraumatise victims.

What was meant to be the end of a high-profile political case intended to challenge the outcome of Uganda’s national elections earlier this year turned into something even more astonishing late this week: a senior member of the country’s Supreme Court claimed that Chief Justice Alfonse Owiny-Dollo had tried to gag her and stop her reading her minority decision in the matter until he had vetted her ruling.

After a decade of legal uncertainty, the supreme court of Zimbabwe has clarified a contentious problem relating to whether spouses are legally obliged to bequeath their property to each other. The courts have been divided over the issue for some time. Some have taken the view, now upheld by the supreme court, that a spouse, not married in community of property, has testamentary freedom. Others said that a will effectively disinheriting the other spouse was unlawful. Moreover, it had a disproportionate effect on women and would thus be unconstitutional.