Subscribe:
RSS feed
News & Views by Terry Bell
Browsing All posts tagged under »justice«
Why the law is so often an ass
July 27, 2012
The controversial medical parole of South Africa's former top cop, Jackie Selebi, has once again thrown into stark relief questions about kidney disease and treatment, questions that have long disturbed the labour movement. Over the years nothing has changed: it is the size of a bank balance, sometimes the level of powerful connections, that determines whether a chronically ill person lives or dies.
A 13-year legal travesty
November 4, 2011
In a scene reminiscent of the apartheid era, the final act in a 13-year travesty of justice drama began shortly after midnight on Thursday last week. Although there is no evidence that Donovan Leibrandt was at the scene either before during or after a 1998 arson attempt by another naval rating who died in the process, he was taken into custody this week to serve a four-year sentence on the basis of "common purpose".
Terry Bell Writes 
Why the law is often an ass
July 27, 2012
0
“Then the law is an ass,” said Mr Bumble in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist when he was told that the law considered his wife to act under his direction. Few truer words have been said — or written. Because the law, that body of regulations that can shelter stupidity, pedantry, vindictiveness and sheer bloody-mindedness behind the veil of justice, is very frequently an ass.