Absa Premiership
Full Time: University of Pretoria 3-1 Free State Stars
Date: 4 December 2013
Venue: Absa Tuks Stadium
A brace from Geoffrey Massa and an Atusaye Nyondo penalty secured a 3-1 win for AmaTuks over Free State Stars at the Absa Tuks Stadium on Tuesday night.
The win sees AmaTuks move up to 11th on the Absa Premiership log with 14th points.
For more http://www.soccerladuma.co.za
Cape Town – The legal practice bill could be challenged in court, Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said on Wednesday.
“My suspicion is there may even be litigation about the legal practice bill because there are concerns about the role of the [justice] minister. There are concerns about how that bill is going to operate,” he said in the Western Cape High Court.
Mogoeng said it would be improper for him or others in the judiciary to comment on the effects the bill would have on the legal profession.
“Now if the judge president or any of the judges present here, including myself, are to comment on it, you run the risk of having to be forced to recuse yourself when the matter comes before your court. So I think we would do well as judges to reserve any comment we would have.”
Mogoeng said “tempers are running high” in the legal profession, after the National Assembly approved the bitterly-contested bill last month.
The proposed law has far-reaching implications for the legal profession. It will bring an end to the long tradition of self-regulation by the legal fraternity.
It will replace bar associations with a single council, which the minister of justice can dissolve if he loses confidence in it.
Many advocates and attorneys have expressed opposition to the bill, saying it would interfere with the independence of the legal profession.
Opposition parties also objected to the bill, but it was passed by the ANC majority.
The ruling party said the bill was needed to ensure transformation in the profession.
The legislation makes provision for community service for law graduates, establishes an ombudsman for legal services, and sets out more transparent disciplinary processes for legal practitioners.
The Law Society of SA has pleaded for ministerial powers to be limited, and has warned that if the legislation curtails the profession’s independence, the courts will lose their independence.
– SAPA
KwaZulu-Natal will allocate more resources to the police to help fight crime in the province, Premier Senzo Mchunu said on Wednesday.
He was responding to police commissioner Riah Phiyega’s crime prevention strategy, presented to an executive committee meeting in Pietermaritzburg.
Mchunu said he wanted KwaZulu-Natal to be at the forefront of the fight against crimes such as housebreaking, drug trafficking, stock theft, hijackings, and rape.
“Government will continue to allocate resources to support community crime prevention associations, street crime committees and neighbourhood watch groups in order to make it impossible for criminals to operate.”
He said law enforcement agencies had put measures in place in the province to deal with crime during the festive season.
“Hotspot areas have been identified and police have been deployed accordingly to prevent contact crime.”
– SAPA
A man arrested in connection of murder in Vryburg
Prosecutor Denver Combrink said Moegamat Farouk Martin, 42, of Lansdowne in Cape Town, would probably plead guilty on 11 December to fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud.
Martin was arrested on 12 August, when he tried to pay for groceries worth R13 811 at the Pick n Pay in Kenilworth, Cape Town.
Kenilworth branch manager John Lendoor was told Martin’s credit card payment had been declined.
Store managers had been warned that fake bank cards were in circulation.
The prosecutor alleges that Martin was found in possession of a grey master card, supposedly issued by the Bank of America.
Lendoor recognised the card as counterfeit and alerted the police.
An investigation revealed that the card was issued by Europay Belgium SCRL.
Martin is also charged with violating the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act.
At his first appearance last month, Combrink told the court Martin had been refused bail by the Bellville District Court.
He said he had already informed defence counsel N Jaftha of the sentence that would be acceptable to the State.
If Martin disagreed with the proposed sentence, plea negotiations would collapse and the State would proceed to trial in the normal manner.
Martin remained in custody.
– SAPA
Johannesburg – Two men accused of breaking into Crime Line head Yusuf Abramjee’s house appeared in the Atteridgeville Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, Gauteng police said.
The matter was postponed to 13 December and they would remain in custody, police spokesperson Thomas Mufumadi said.
They were arrested after a spate of house robberies, burglaries, and hijackings around Pretoria last month.
Police recovered three stolen cars, two unlicensed firearms, ammunition, and money at the men’s home.
On 22 November they allegedly broke into Abramjee’s house in Pretoria and demanded the keys to his BMW.
They fired shots at the house while reversing out of the garage.
Police said at the time the robbers had targeted another house in a nearby street earlier that day.
– SAPA
Pretoria – Families of the Lonmin mineworkers shot in Marikana, North West, last year will re-join the public hearings in January, the Farlam Commission said on Wednesday.
Commission chairperson, retired Judge Ian Farlam, said the families would be back at the public hearings in Pretoria around 22 January.
“We wish you a safe journey home. We hope you will have a blessed Christmas and a happy New Year, despite all the problems that you have had to deal with,” he told them.
“We will start the commission earlier, but you will be informed while you are at home or when you return here. Go well, we will see you next year.”
Last month, Farlam announced that the commission would take “a working recess” from 5 December until 6 January.
“There is a lot of work to be done in the interim. I hope the counsel involved will start to prepare preliminary heads of arguments on the issues covered by the numerous witnesses that we have heard since November last year,” he said.
The commission is investigating the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 44 people at Marikana, near Rustenburg in North West, in August last year.
Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, on 16 August 2012, while trying to disperse and disarm them.
Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission a short while later.
Cross-examination
On Wednesday, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, for the families of the deceased mineworkers, cross-examined Brigadier Adriaan Calitz about his evidence that the strikers might have shot each other.
“Evidence will be led from police officers who saw the people [protesters] with rifles there,” Calitz said.
“We also know from the media that there was a rifle wrapped in a blanket.”
Calitz said the police did not collect used bullet cartridges at Marikana.
He said cartridges would be ejected only if a shooter reloaded. Other firearms did not drop their cartridges after firing shots.
Ntsebeza said six protesters were fatally shot with shotguns at scene one and two, and said this meant the shooters reloaded their weapons at the scene.
“To suggest that all six were killed by one bullet from a shotgun; that would take some imagination,” he said.
Calitz said there was “a big difference between what was fired at Marikana and the cartridges that were found”.
He agreed with Ntsebeza that no used shotgun cartridges were found.
Earlier, Ntsebeza questioned Calitz about the methods police use to quell violent wage strikes.
When he read out details of post mortems, relatives of the deceased were warned about their graphic content.
Many victims were wounded in the upper body.
Calitz did not dispute this. He said the forensic reports also indicated that some bodies had fresh marks made by a traditional healer.
Ntsebeza queried police evidence that the strikers were shot in self defence.
The public hearings continue on Thursday.
– SAPA
Pretoria – A Pretoria man was convicted by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Wednesday of abusing and murdering his 3-and-a-half-week-old stepson.
“The accused’s evidence that nothing was wrong with the baby before he fell unconscious is so improbable that his version can be rejected as a blatant lie,” Judge Bert Bam said.
He found Christiaan “Chris” Oldewage, 29, guilty of the murder of his wife Juanita’s baby son Stiaan. He died in Montana hospital in Pretoria on the night of 12 December 2011.
Juanita Oldewage, who was charged with her husband, committed suicide in August.
The baby died of multiple injuries, including a skull fracture, brain injuries, broken ribs, severe internal injuries and bleeding.
The doctor who treated the boy after he was admitted to hospital and a pathologist testified that severe blunt force injury and pressure were necessary to cause a baby’s supple bones to break.
The child’s great-grandmother and a police constable testified that they had seen deep scratch marks on the baby’s face and upper body when he was about a week-and-a-half old. Bam rejected Oldewage’s claims that a cat scratched the baby.
Oldewage had no explanation for the baby’s severe injuries. He denied resenting the baby because it was not his child.
Bam said it was clear the baby sustained the injuries within 24 hours before his admission to hospital.
He said it was a pity that Constable Marnus Dege had failed to take any action after Mrs Oldewage complained to him that her husband was abusing the baby, and after himself seeing the extent of the baby’s injuries.
“It not only amounts to a contravention of the Child Protection Act but was also a serious dereliction of duty that probably had serious consequences. It resulted in the child’s death,” Bam said.
Sentencing
Helen Mabapa, for Oldewage, argued he should be sentenced to less than 15 years’ imprisonment, especially because he was a first offender and had heart problems.
Prosecutor Celeste Smit asked for a sentence of more than 25 years, saying the brutality of the assault was a severely aggravating factor.
She argued that the baby must have suffered indescribable pain. Bam, however, said the baby would almost immediately have lost consciousness with such severe injuries.
The aggravating factors in the case were overwhelming and the only thing in Oldewage’s favour was his clean criminal record, Bam said.
It was the worst possible form of child abuse for which Oldewage had shown no remorse whatsoever.
Baby Stiaan’s great-grandmother Dorothea Engelbrecht burst into tears after Oldewage’s conviction.
“I am glad that it has finally reached this stage. I’m also happy that the judge said Chris had murdered him.
“I’m not excusing my granddaughter, but she’s not here to say what had happened. I’m happy that at least the judge said the little baby would immediately have lost consciousness and would not have felt the pain,” she said.
Oldewage will be sentenced on Thursday.
– SAPA
Johannesburg – A policeman has been killed in a shoot-out in Elliotdale, outside Mthatha, Eastern Cape police said on Wednesday.
“It is with great sadness to report that one of our members paid the highest price in service of the people of the Eastern Cape,” said police spokesperson Marinda Mills.
She said Warrant Officer Rodges Sithelo and a colleague responded to a robbery at Boxer Super Store around 09:00 on Tuesday.
“Indications are that the two police officials assumed that all the suspects were inside the business premises.”
Mills said they noticed too late that one of the robbers was hiding outside the business entrance, and he started firing at them.
“A shoot-out ensued, as the other three suspects joined in the attack on the two police officials,” she said.
Sithelo and one of the gunmen was killed. Another gunman was wounded and was now under police guard.
“Two of the four suspects managed to flee the scene with an undisclosed amount of cash,” said Mills.
Police seized an AK-47 assault rifle and an R1 rifle.
Mills said a task team had been established to track down the remaining robbers.
“We want to extend our most sincere condolences to his beloved, family, friends, colleagues and all the people who shared his life,” said acting provincial commissioner Major General Chris Ntantiso.
– SAPA
Pretoria – Public Protector Thuli Madonsela on Wednesday dismissed claims that she plans to release her Nkandla report in March with hopes of influencing next year’s general elections.
“I never said the report would be released in March next year,” she told reporters in Pretoria.
“I said I was trying to have the report released by the end of the year, but the likelihood is that it will be released in January 2014.”
Madonsela said statements by her office consistently said the report would be released at the latest by mid-January.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe on Tuesday demanded the speedy release of the final report pertaining to the upgrades of President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead.
Mantashe said releasing the report late could be seen as a delaying tactic and a political ploy to create negativity around the image and the integrity of Zuma and the ANC.
Madonsela said that as protector she had no role in politics and harboured no intentions of channelling voters in certain directions at next year’s polls.
She said the right to choose who governed the country was a fundamental part of the Constitution and something she would not tamper with.
“It is not for the public protector to advise or influence the exercise of the people of South Africa’s rights to choose political parties they would like to govern them,” she said.
“I am certain that this is a right the people of South Africa are fully aware of and I believe it is a right they would guard jealously against any interference. I have no intention or interest to interfere with this right and have never done so.”
She said she would ask for a meeting with the ANC. An earlier meeting scheduled with the party was postponed.
Had the two sides met, misinformed statements made by the party would have been avoided, Madonsela said.
– SAPA
Johannesburg – Leaks of incomplete reports by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s office happen regularly and prejudice its work, the ANC said on Wednesday.
“These leaks, that have become a regular feature in recent times, have the effect of not only undermining and prejudicing the integrity and the work of the public protector’s office, but also [of] harming the image and the standing of those who are being investigated,” ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu said in a statement.
“We also welcome that the public protector agrees that, as the ANC, we had every right to be gravely concerned with the leaks regarding her investigation into the security upgrade at Nkandla and other investigations undertaken by her office before they are finalised.”
He said he knew Madonsela shared the party’s concern that any leaks of any incomplete investigation could erode the standing and integrity of her office.
Mthembu recalled three other incomplete reports that were recently leaked. They concerned Independent Electoral Commission chair Pansy Tlakula, former communications minister Dina Pule, and Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, he said.
“Our view and our take is that the final responsibility rests with her office on any leakage of incomplete investigations by her office,” said Mthembu.
He said Madonsela’s statement that she did not have the capacity to take those involved in the leakage to court, was an issue about which everyone should be concerned.
On Wednesday, Madonsela defended herself against claims that her office leaked the Nkandla provisional report.
“From where I’m sitting, I have no reason to suspect the leak is from my office. What do we benefit from leaking it to you [media]? It doesn’t make sense to me,” she told reporters
Madonsela said her office had had the Nkandla report since March, but that nothing was leaked.
It details her investigations into the R206m upgrade to President Jacob Zuma’s homestead of Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal.
Releasing report
Mthembu said the ANC was happy there was no disagreement between the party and Madonsela that the report be released as soon as it was finalised.
“The ANC wants to assure all people of South Africa, including the office of the public protector, that there was no intention and there will never be any intention on the part of the ANC to inhibit the work of the public protector,” he said.
“We expect her to do her work without fear, favour or prejudice. We have on numerous occasions defended and stood by her final reports and recommendations, indicating our respect for the work of her office.”
He said the ANC welcomed Madonsela’s intention to meet for talks.
– SAPA
The Guardian 