Silencing the Roar of Trump’s Legal Troubles: Biden’s Missed Opportunities to Defend Democracy

 In our highly polarized nation, the incendiary or anti-democratic as well as anti-rule of law rhetoric that has been flowing from former president Donald Trump and revolving around his four criminal indictments, 91 felony charges, and implicit securing of the 2024 GOP presidential nomination has already reduced the upcoming election between incumbent Joe Biden and challenger Trump to a matter of whether the United States will remain a democratic republic or become another fallen illiberal democracy. 

Yet in the second Read the rest

To stand or not to stand – a case of legal standing

This blog was co-authored by Sebenzile Magagula, Candidate Attorney.

A claim (Joubert and Others v Louw (CIV APP RC 08/2022) [2023] ZANWHC 102 (22 June 2023)) was dismissed by the High Court on the grounds that the respondent lacked the requisite legal standing to litigate on behalf of her husband who was the party to the contract sued on.

The claimant sued for delictual damages arising from failure by the defending attorneys to institute timeous action against a construction … Read the rest

Court will mull scope of attorney-client privilege when lawyers give both legal and nonlegal advice

Court will mull scope of attorney-client privilege when lawyers give both legal and nonlegal advice

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A lawyer’s legal advice is privileged. A court cannot order the lawyer or the client to disclose it. But a lawyer’s nonlegal advice is not privileged. What happens when advice is partly legal and partly nonlegal and the two parts cannot be untangled? In such dual-purpose situations, does the privilege protect all the advice or none of it?

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear opposing answers to that question in a case known as In re Grand JuryRead the rest

Insurance and common interest legal professional privilege

A party may claim legal advice privilege or litigation privilege.

Legal advice privilege requires that the information is legal advice, given by a legal advisor in confidence to a client and in respect of which privilege is claimed.

Litigation privilege protects communication between co-litigants or their legal advisors and third parties where the communication is made for the purposes of pending or contemplated litigation. The relevant document must have been obtained or brought into existence for the purposes of a … Read the rest

Commercial Bail Industry ‘Exploits’ U.S. Legal System: Paper

The commercial bail bond industry exploits the U.S. legal system to earn billions of dollars in profits while providing little benefit to the public, charges the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI).

Calling it a “broken system…in which bail bond companies extract money from defendants and waste court resources without providing meaningful services in exchange,” PPI, a nonprofit think tank which researches corrections, said the system was too entangled with state regulators, legislators and the courts to be fixed through reforms.

“Rolling … Read the rest