Deputy President is relieved of duties by President of South Africa

Many of the online newspapers in South Africa have just broken with lead stories relating to the end of the speculation surrounding the position of Deputy President Jacob Zuma since the completion of the Shaik trial in the Durban High Court. Here are some of the links :

Mbeki fires Zuma - Business Day

Excerpt :

"Mbeki said: "I have come to the conclusion that the circumstances dictate that in the interest of the honourable Deputy President, the government, our young democratic system and our country, it would be best to release the honourable Jacob Zuma from his responsibilities as deputy president of the republic and member of the Cabinet."Mbeki said he would make an announcement about the change in his Cabinet in due course. Mbeki told the joint sitting on Tuesday it seemed self-evident that arising out of the judgement, further legal processes would be undertaken in the higher courts."

Deputy president sacked - Mail & Guardian

Mbeki releases Zuma - IOL (Independent Online)

Zuma gets the sack - News24

Action in the Courts, and it's only Tuesday

In Kern v Minister of Safety and Security, the Constitutional Court handed down a decision on 13 June finding the Minister of Safety and Security liable for the behaviour of three policeman who had raped the applicant. Three factors lead the Court to its decision : the policemen and Minister had a duty to protect members of the public, the applicant had turned to the police for protection, and the "wrongful conduct of the policemen coincided with their failure to perform their duties to protect the applicant".

On the same day, the Cape High Court ruled on a case in which a school teacher used his beliefs as a Christian to justify corporal punishment in school.

On 25 May it was reported that the Port Elizabeth High Court had ruled that vehicles should not be confiscated from motorists accused of driving in an intoxicated state. In a response dated 10 June, the Asset Forfeiture Unit explains why it feels the seizure of these vehicles is justified.

I'd have had to link to this article on the strength of its title alone but the subject is timeous : "Stop your presentation before it kills again!". I'll be speaking at a conference in Pretoria next week and the points it raises caused me to go back and review my outline last night. After experimenting with a number of formats, I have taken to preparing my presentations in html as it makes for much easier navigation, especially in response to questions from the audience, and I find it more interactive and versatile than the more traditional PowerPoint format.

With a deep breath

Back again and raring to go!

We've finally overcome a number of teething problems with access to our blogspot and can't wait to get going again. The downtime has been profitably used to get up to speed on various developments in this field and I've come across some extremely useful sites in the course of the last few weeks.

Firstly, everyone seems to be looking for a copy of the judgment handed down in the Durban High Court on 31 May 2005 in the matter of S v Shaik. Copies abound on the Internet including this one on the Business Day website. Other interesting links relating to this case are the "Seven bad years for Shabir Shaik", a chronology of developments leading to the guilty verdicts on the IOL site, and "Timeline of the Zuma-Shaik Saga" on the Business Day website.

Another judgment that is attracting interest at the moment is in the matter of The Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope v Andre Nesbitt Berrange ; it relates to the matter of conveyancers alleged to be 'buying' work from third parties, in this case estate agents.

As far as blogging policies are concerned, one site I have bookmarked and will be referring others to is IBM's Blogging policy and guidelines. For anyone who is undecided about which RSS aggregator to use, the law librarians of Southern Illinois have some really useful tips and links at "Current awareness made easy" on the Law Dawg Blawg. "RSS : moving into the mainstream" on the Engineering Information website is another resource I have found useful. Finally, the "RSS Specifications : everything you need to know about rss" site answered most of my questions before I'd had time to formulate them.