Cheap talk and being above reproach. Much has been said about advocates Jiba and Mrwebi returning to the advocate’s profession and, indeed, the NPA. The mere fact that the SCA has found their being struck from the roll of advocates as being an inappropriate sanction, does not make them suitable for leadership in the NPA. The finding was that they had done wrong but because there was no personal gain from Mrwebi’s conduct he should not be struck off the roll. Furthermore, there was a finding that they might have acted in good faith but were probably incompetent. By no stretch of the imagination should one appoint such as those as leaders in an organisation as crucial as the NPA.
Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $4.69bn to 22 claimants who had been harmed by that company’s talc products, which has been linked to ovarian cancer. That company maintains that its talc does not contain asbestos. The saga continues.
Negligence and householders: If a danger to children exists on the premises of the occupier of a house and he fails to bring this to the attention of the parents of such children who are present, he will, in principle, be intellectually liable if children are injured because of that danger.
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What happens when the judge hearing your case dies? In this case the judge had heard the case and was set to hear arguments by the parties concerned; he then died. The parties were ordered to start afresh. This for a case where the fire started in 2004; the parties had gone to court in 2011 and the judge had died in 2017.
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Is the law an ass? An affidavit to support a request for the condonation of late filing of documents requires a reasonable explanation for the default and the disclosure of a bona fide defence. This case dealt with the terms opinion, submit, confirm and verify. Perhaps not, but certainly tiresome.
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Water abstraction servitudes: the case, referenced below, deals with water abstraction rights and the preference of use given to those holding servitudes over the holders of ownership rights. What is to be taken from this is that drafters of servitudes should be as clear as possible and ideally deal with complex servitudes by way of registered notarial contracts rather than the very brief, but cheap method, of reserving ownership rights on transfer.
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Section 2 C (1) of the Wills Act, 1953, is to be read as follows:
“If any descendants of a testator, excluding a minor or a mentally ill descendant, who, together with the surviving spouse of the testator, is entitled to a benefit in terms of a will renounces his right to receive such benefit, such benefit shall vest in the surviving spouse. For the purposes of this sub-section, a ‘surviving spouse’ includes every husband and wife of a monogamous and polygamous Muslim marriage solemnised under the religion of Islam.”
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