Ray's Words
Reporting on Eastern Cape Courts JUDGES & JUDGMENTS By RAY HARTLE The complaint of sexual harassment against Eastern Cape Judge-President Selby Mbenenge is likely to dominate news about the judiciary this year. Chief Justice Raymond Zondo is due to constitute
President of Tribunal Ngoepe and Chief Justice Maya ‘still consulting’ on media attendance UPDATE: SABC is reporting on Sunday morning that Monday’s hearing will deal only with preliminary matters. BY RAY HARTLE On Monday, October 7, 2024, the judicial tribunal
Rules to prevent sexual harassment, encourage reporting & protect victims, signed off before chief justice’s retirement RAY HARTLE In one of his last official duties just a day before his retirement on August 31, former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo signed
The one’s a red cross… Summertime in Swish It’s been almost nine years since I last traveled abroad. That July 2015 trip with Belinda took in Kent, England, and stays in Quebec, Canada, Bean Town, New England and the Big
As we voted in South Africa in 1994 – many of us for the first time – I rather naively believed that it would take just a few years for everything in our beloved country to be hunky-dory, for apartheid
Zondo ignores Mthatha judge’s unsubstantiated ‘open letter’ claims RAY HARTLE Eastern Cape high court Judge Lindiwe Rusi’s so-called “Open letter to TheHonourable Chief Justice Raymond Zondo”, dated December 5 2023, is a verbose,meandering, pamphlet ranging across “vocational paths”, grotesque gossip
Who judges the judges? From City Press, March 17 2024 RAY HARTLE In a history covering the Makhanda (previously Grahamstown) High Court since 1984, when apartheid-era courts were preoccupied with cases reflecting the extreme brutality into which the country had
By RAY HARTLE On Tweede Nuwejaar (second New Year), January 2, 2023, I received a call from Mthatha attorney and member of the Judicial Services Commission Mvuzo Notyesi, clearly seeking to dissuade me from publishing a news article he believed
The Judicial Conduct Committee who met on June 28 2023 to consider the sexual harassment complaint against Judge-President Selby Mbenenge comprised judges Dumisani Zondi, Tati Makgoka and Nolwazi Mabindla-Boqwana, all members of the Supreme Court of Appeal. In its ruling
Chief Justice Held Claims To Be Unsubstantiated Reporting on Eastern Cape Courts JUDGES & JUDGMENTS By RAY HARTLE Two years after the Office of the Chief Justice was first asked if it had received an anonymous letter containing allegations of
By RAY HARTLE The complainant in the allegations of sexual harassment against Judge-President Mbenenge was identified from the first media report – in the Sunday Times – as Andiswa Mengo, an official in the Makhanda high court. The complainant has
RAY HARTLE South Africa’s deputy chief justice Mandisa Maya, in the Bhisho high court on Friday to celebrate a hundred years of SA women lawyers, said the country’s judiciary would “very soon” have a sexual harassment policy to protect women
RAY HARTLE South Africa’s Judicial Service Commission will on Monday, 2 October 2023, discuss the referral to a judicial tribunal of a complaint of sexual harassment against Eastern Cape judge-president Selby Mbenenge. The JSC will meet in Sandton throughout the
RAY HARTLE The Health Justice Initiative is taking Minister of Health Joe Phaahla to court for full disclosure on how South Africa procured 38 million Covid-19 vaccine dosages, which cost up to R10 billion, based on national budget allocations. The
Ray Hartle NEWS First Published Sunday, June 18 2023 in: Twenty-seven-year-old East London teacher Zimbini* was very excited when she fell pregnant in 2022 and looked forward to the birth of her son. “Part of me wanted to be pregnant
We’re totally crap at a whole lot of things. But mourning? We know how to do that. We’re useless at bringing a foetus into our world – one conceived, still-born, delivered with unbearable deformity in a poor or rural community.
By RAY HARTLE Standard Bank’s announcement that it is giving up on sponsoring Makhanda’s (Grahamstown) national jazz festival and associated youth jazz festival after a relationship of more than two decades, is bound to impact future editions of this homegrown,
Long before the Special Tribunal handed down a final order in 2021 reviewing and setting aside the Eastern Cape health department’s 2020 tender for the supply of 100 motorcycle clinics, the Special Investigating Unit had already recommended to Premier Oscar
Manichaean / *adj. of or characterized by dualistic contrast or conflict between light or goodness, and darkness, chaos or evil.* Bernard Agulhas is no equivocating, ‘shades-of-grey’, accountant or auditor. That is how it should be, the former chief executive officer of
SIU approach had major negative implications for established motorcyle clinic firm.
BY RAY HARTLE Former Eastern Cape health head of department Dr Thobile Mbengashe, now a special advisor in the office of the premier (OTP), must face a disciplinary inquiry initiated by Premier Oscar Mabuyane over his alleged role in the
RAY HARTLE The majority of people across the world have faced fear and uncertainty since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Uncertainty among ill people – described as “the inability to determine the meaning of illness-related events”[1] has become hugely
RAY HARTLE There is no agreement among South Africa’s heart transplant programmes that Covid-19 vaccination will be recommended for donor heart recipients. While a vaccine is keenly anticipated as the best means for immunosuppressed transplant recipients to counter Covid-19, not
South Africa’s four heart transplant programmes face challenging times, after a year in which transplant numbers slumped dramatically due to the Covid-19 pandemic. And the second wave of the virus has put paid to transplantations in most programmes in the
Since the Covid-19 pandemic arrived and especially during the national lockdown in South Africa, I have seen an increase in interest in this site. That is great to have but it also means more management of the site from my
I have been trying to figure out what my medium to long-term lifestyle may be once the enforced Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa is lifted. Logically, it seems that fellow organ donor recipients in South Africa and I must prepare
The chair of the technical advisory group to government on Covid-19, Prof Salim Abdool Karim, says the interventions introduced by the SA government have slowed the viral spread and the country has gained some time. But that is all. The
Most people, those who acknowledge some or other religious faith as well as those of no faith at all, allow humour to meld with their understandings of life crises. The Covid-19 pandemic and the resultant national lockdown have not changed
Why me, Lord? Some Social Factors Associated with the Receipt of a Donor Heart In South Africa A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts of Rhodes University by
This post is a re-run of previous discussions about life and death and was also carried by the Daily Dispatch just before Easter 2019. Since it’s Good Friday – can we have a conversation about life after death? This is
You regard yourself as intelligent, alert, able to access information using all the modern era’s channels, and so aware of what’s going on in the world, You’re reasonably healthy, you have resources to ensure your cupboards are stocked,
Life is changing radically for many people around the world. Like most people, I’m worried about contracting Covid-19, the latest or “novel” iteration of the regular coronavirus to be unleashed on the world. The stress is most evident in
I really didn’t know it was a thing – and an established thing at that: People die by the hand of their doctor. Or, more correctly, they die by the poor, sloppy handwriting of their doctor. It turns out
It’s three years today since I was reborn. This third year has been hectically busy. I’m writing fulltime. And studying again. Spending too much time on long roads. Although the brilliant skies are always an incentive to stick with
Zisanda Nkonkobe’s low haemoglobin count brought her to the brink of death when she was diagnosed earlier in September with auto-immune haemoglobin anaemia, a rare condition involving the breakdown of oxygen-carrying red blood cells through the body. Her haemoglobin count
At least 32 young children have died since 2000 after failing to receive a heart transplant – a sign of South Africa’s faltering organ donation and transplantation programmes. In one hospital in a five-year period from 2010 to 2014, two
For over 50 years, heart transplantation has been regarded as the “gold standard” in treatment of cardiomyopathy and end-stage heart failure. But Cape Town-based cardiothoracic surgeon Dr Willie Koen told the congress of the South African Transplant Society in
What might South Africa’s organ and tissue transplant programme look like in future? This was the question examined during a two-day workshop to develop a national roadmap to increase deceased organ and tissue donor referrals and donor family consents for
(My statement here is in no way an attempt at swaying anyone. In fact, “spoiler alert”, you may wish to unfriend me or in any other way dissociate yourself from me after reading my list.) I have not yet given
The film Green Book, which won this year’s Oscar for best film, explores road travel through racist America by African-Americans in the segregation era. It is based on The Negro Motorist Green Book, a compendium volume published for 30
Journey through our past is key to our present Mkhuseli Khusta Jack is a son of our province and his book is the story of our land and our blood-soaked history Daily Dispatch 16 Feb 2019 RAY HARTLE Picture: ALAN
Twice in one year our family geometry has changed quite radically – in the nicest of ways. A year ago, Heath & Kelly tied the knot, and last weekend, Becca & Marco exchanged vows to each other. We came together
“Minutes later, after Koen and Modler leave and in the few moments of quiet – before the start of detailed preparations for the early morning surgery – I stand at the window of the 10th floor of my ward,
It’s going to be a solitary Friday pilgrimage. I have to meet a business associate in George about a property transaction and decide to spend an extra day traipsing around in the district between Oudtshoorn and Matjiesrivier, near where my
I’ve been thinking this week of the chutzpah of very wealthy alleged crooks and the advantages they either inherently have or which they claim, by virtue of their enormous affluence. This is not a new thought at all. But
I was impressed with this driver’s courage as we passed him and his bed on the road from Grahamstown to East London. The load on the roof of his car was rather flimsily tied, he was going at speed and
FRIDAY REFLECTION It’s become my favourite thing to do on a Friday afternoon – walk the streets of the city where I was Re-born. You get an amazing perspective on this physical place, of the elements that came and continue
I was mostly quite useless at the competitive sports I played growing up. But what I lacked in the talent stakes compared to Julian, Anton, Auburn, Lawrence and other members of the motley crew I hung with, I more than
American golfer Eric Compton ended in second place in the 2014 US Open tournament at Pinehurst in North Carolina. His achievement is a testimony to the tenacity of organ donor recipients. Compton, 38, has had two heart transplants in his
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