Strange this – a right-wing sympathiser and the former wife of an ANC cabinet minister may have become related through sheer chronological coincidence.

Just when it seemed that convicted drug dealer Sheryl Cwele, formerly married to Siyabonga Cwele, minister of state security, had exhausted all her legal options, it turns out that she might have a slight chance |of delaying – maybe even reducing – her sentence.

Sunday is Grandparents Day in the US. Strangely, even though we don’t mark the event, SA courts have seen a recent spate of cases involving grandparents. These cases deal with widely differing facts, but together they lead a reader to conclude that a grandparent’s role is far from clear.

Late last month the high court in Grahamstown heard a dispute concerning a woman whose son was born soon after her husband died in a car crash.

When one of the most senior judges in a country assaults a security guard and threatens her with a pistol, what outcome should the judge expect – impunity or impeachment?

Kenya provides a model answer to the question. Its judicial service commission sprang into action immediately, performing its duty exactly as required.

THIS whole week I’ve been hearing and writing about angry responses from sections of the legal profession to the government’s proposed Legal Practice Bill.

So it was something of a surprise when, on Tuesday, I was approached by organisations representing SA’s community advice offices and the paralegals working with them. They wanted to discuss their submissions to Parliament on the bill – the essence of which is that they are distressed to have been left out of its ambit.

Important news here for lawyers – and attorneys with the right to appear in the higher courts should pay special attention. A new judgment, disguised under a dispute between Liberty Group and two brokers, slices through reams of red tape and could simplify practice.

When Liberty asked for summary judgment against brokers Roychand and Reetha Devi Singh, the two objected to the action on the grounds that the company’s paperwork was faulty: they claimed the documentation was signed by an attorney not legally empowered to do so.