by Jean-Jacques Cornish

South Africa’s courts have been a constant in the country’s hazardous path through wicked colonization, cruel apartheid and the vagaries of democracy.

So it is both inevitable and desirable that they should be called upon to rule on events in the biggest crisis the country has faced since the Second World War 75 years ago.

Government has assumed unprecedented powers to deal with the COVID 19 pandemic.

These have had an immediate impact on the rights of South Africans guaranteed in their Constitution that is justifiably the envy of most of the world.

They will also have an unfathomable long term impact on the socio-economic life of South Africa that is euphemistically referred to as challenging.

The first legal foray is being launched by British American Tobacco South Africa and the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association.

They argue that the National Coronavirus Command Council has taken measures that fly in the face of individuals right  to choose and are unnecessarily injurious to the exchequer. They further argue that the the NCCC is suffocating the country’s socio economic prospects.

Government counters that the prevention of tobacco and alcohol sales during the lockdown are justified on purely health grounds.

They say these steps have been emulated by Mexico Hong Kong and Greenland.

The second matter to come before the courts is challenging the  constitutional mandate  and the power of NCCC.

President Cyril Ramaphosa is being asked to explain the source of the power he has wielded delegating executive functions to a body that includes some but not all of his Cabinet.

To this, government will cite Constitutional Court President Arthur Chaskalson 1995 ruling outlawing capital punishment.

Judge Chaskalson said that the rights to life and dignity are the most important of them all. In make any ruling on human rights, these have to be placed above all else.

Ramaphosa argues that regulations put in place to combat COVID 19 are founded on government’s commitment to life and dignity.

In extreme circumstances, he holds, it is necessary to put a temporary restriction on other rights like the freedom of choice, movement and association.

Education is at the root of the third legal challenge.

The Tebelia Institute for Leadership, Education, Governance and Training 

and the Africa Institute on Human Rights and Constitutional Litigation are challenging the opening of schools.

They say government cannot keep parents at home to prevent the spread of COVID 19 while sending innocent children to school to save the academic year.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga  says, in effect, it is still up in the air.

She acknowledges that her department has indicated children could be returning to school as early as this week.

However, she says it is only the “education sector” not necessarily the schools themselves that  have opened up today.

As Tom Wolfe said in Bonfire of the Vanities, we are truly now in the web of the law.

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This casts into doubt the central African country’s ability to organise new elections in July as ordered by the the Constitutional Court.

The Malawian who has tested positive for coronavirus travelled to India  Two people who came into contact with him have also tested positive.

President Peter Mutharika declared a state of emergency  last month that closed the country’s borders.

The second term he won at the helm has been overturned by the Constitutional Court that found the elections last May were fraudulent.

Malawi’s electoral commission has announced new elections in early July.

It remains to be seen whether these can be organized with the COVID 19 pandemic raging around the the world.

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His spokesman calls the unanimous decision by the country’s five top judges a serious miscarriage of justice and an attack on the foundations of Malawi’s democracy.

Peter Mutharika has six weeks to appeal the Constitutional Court ruling that Malawi must hold new elections within 150 days.

He’s been left in charge of the country torn by six months of hearings and violent demonstrations.

His main opponent Lazarus Chakwera , who claims he won the election, has hailed the ruling as a victory for democracy.

The court found massive and widespread irregularities in last May’s elections, including the use of typewriter correction fluid to alter results sheets.

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There has been looting by the protestors demanding the sacking of the electoral commission head they claim helped President Peter Mutharika rig the result.

Malawi’s opposition parties maintain typewriter correction fluid was used to change figures on results sheets from the May election won by Peter Mutharika with 38,6 % of the vote.

Lazarus Chakwera, who quit as Deputy President because he says Mutharika did not effectively fight corruption, maintains he won the election.

Soldiers have been deployed on the streets of Blantyre and Lilongwe to prevent looting, but companies including South Africa’s Multichoice have boarded up their shops as a precaution.

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This would give the man. who once described leaders who overstayed their time at the helm as the root of Africa’s problems. a sixth term in office.

The endorsement for Yoweri Museveni came at a retreat meeting of top ruling party officials chaired by the 74-year-old president himself.

Last year, Uganda’s Constitutional Court upheld the scrapping of an age limit of 75 on the country’s president.

Museveni came to power at the head of a rebel army 33 years ago.

His party says it wants him stay to through 2021 and beyond to avoid a bottleneck in Uganda’s transformation 

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Authorities in Kinshasa have prevented a rally by  Martin Fayulu who persists that he won the election.

Police removed the podium and speakers outside Martin Fayulu’s party headquarters where he was due to address supporters.

He’s refused President-elect Felix Tshisekedi’s invitation to work together because he maintains the election was stolen.

Invitations to Tshisekedi’s inauguration have been sent to foreign leaders.

It will be interesting to see who attends after the African Union, the European Union, France and Belgium have expressed serious doubts about the official results presented by the electoral commission and upheld by the constitutional court.

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The African Union, which says there are serious doubts about the figures presented to support Tshisekedi’s win, has scrapped plans to send a delegation to the Congo.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Keyatta say yesterday’s ruling by the Constitutional Court in Kinshasa confirms Felix Tshisekedi’s election win requires 

all actors to respect this exercise of DRC national sovereignty.

Martin Fayulu, who claims he won 60% of the vote calls on supporters to demonstrate peacefully against what he calls a constitutional coup d’etat.

The European Union has joined the African Union, France, Belgium and the Catholic bishops in casting doubt on the figures produced by the electoral commission in the DRC.

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But as the United Nations Security Council prepares to take up the matter today, the varied responses to the announcement from the electoral commission show it’s far from universally accepted.

The African Union congratulates the Congolese people on the peaceful election that will give the DRC the first democratic change of President in its history.

The European Union, by contrast says its waiting to peruse results from different observer missions.

France and Belgium have joined Catholic bishops in casting doubt on the provisional outcome giving Felix Tshisekedi victory.

Martin Fayulu, the man they believe actually won, denounces what he calls an electoral coup and says he’ll take his objections to the Constitutional Court that must now determined the final result.

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The Appeal Court has handed down the mandatory 15 years for murder in South Africa.

With time served, Pistorius has been jailed for 13 years and five months.

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents June and Barry say that justice has been served by the heavier sentence handed down to her murderer

They add that the can now get on with their lives.

However, the drama does not necessarily end here.

Pistorius could petition the Constitutional Court to review the Appeal Court decision.

Gerrie Nel, the aggressive prosecutor nicknamed the Rottweiler , says the tougher sentence has affirmed his faith in South Africa’s justice system.

Nel, who now prepares private prosecutions for a rightwing pressure group, brought the appeal saying the six year sentence handed down to Pistorius was shockingly lenient.

Appeal Court judge Willie Seriti agreed.

The full bench of judges found the trial judge Thokozile Masipa  had taken too much account  of Pistorius’s disability and had erred in believing that fear of an intruder had provoked him to fire four shots through a bathroom door killing Steenkamp.

Her original verdict of manslaughter was overturned by the Appeal Court in 2015.  Ordered to impose a sentence for murder, she found substantial and compelling reasons to hand down a sentence of six years.

Seriti said Pistorius had failed to use an opportunity in court to explain his actions and wasnot remorseful.

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Other opposition parties, the United Democratic Movement and the Congress of the People have already supported the EFF legal bid to force Parliamentary Baleka Mbete to introduce impeachment proceedings against the president.

ends intro

In March, the Economic Freedom Fighters initiated impeachment proceedings after the Constitutional Court found President Jacob Zuma did not uphold the Constitution.

The court finding relates to Zuma’s failure  to implement the Public Protector’s remedial action that he repay some of the public money spent on security upgrades at his private Nkandla home.

The DA says after reviewing the arguments made by the other applicants in the EFF case, it can provide new information.

It’s now applied to the Constitutional Court to make written submissions and oral argument before the matter is heard on 5 September.

Chairperson of the DA’s federal executive, James Selfe, says the matter presents an opportunity for the court to provide clear guidelines on impeachment proceedings.

The case is only one attempt to remove Zuma from office.

The National Assembly is expected to vote on a motion of no confidence in him on 8 August.

The Constitutional Court has found that Mbete is empowered to have this matter decided on a secret vote by MPs

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