Law Focus

Law Focus - Gender Marker Changes

Tonight’s show is on progressive legislation and processes around name and gender marker changes, for members of the LGBTQIA Plus community. The Department of Home Affairs have recently gazetted its Draft Identity Management Policy, partly in a bid to make South Africa’s identification system more inclusive. The document states that…

24 Feb 2021 47 min

Law Focus - Worker’s rights on mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies

What happens if your employer forces you to vaccinate for COVID-19 and you’re not comfortable based on various issues such as, medical, religious or cultural? What are the rights of a worker and an employer, respectively, in terms of COVID-19 vaccination? There is still not an established law that requires…

17 Feb 2021 48 min

Law Focus - Termination of Customary Marriage

Do you know how to terminate a customary marriage? Perhaps you have a family member who’s married in terms of customary law and believes they’re divorced…now the question is are they indeed? One should consider that the ramifications of not terminating a customary marriage legally, can have adverse consequences. Various…

10 Feb 2021 52 min

Law Focus - Profile: Nkopane Mokwena

We'll be in conversation with 28-year-old Nkopane Mokwena, a young, vibrant admitted attorney of the High Court of South Africa, who is also a founder and director of Mokwena Nkopane Incorporated, a law firm based in Johannesburg. He acquired his LLB degree at University of the Free State in 2016…

3 Feb 2021 54 min

Law Focus - Reporting Old Rape Cases

What happens when you finally break the silence and reveal an old rape case? Tonight we’re tackling the trauma that comes with being physically and emotionally violated and how most people take time before they’re able talk about their trauma. We will also focus on the legal implications of reporting…

9 Dec 2020 53 min

Law Focus - Profile: Hlengiwe Skosana

Tonight, we’re in conversation with Hlengiwe Skosana, a senior associate at Garlicke & Bousfield’s law firm’s employment law department. She holds an LLB and an LLM in Labour Law from the Nelson Mandela University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Labour Dispute Resolution Practice from the University of Witwatersrand. Hlengiwe serves…

2 Dec 2020 49 min

Law Focus - Lease Agreements: What You Need To Know

Do you know your rights as a tenant and what legal steps to take if or when you experience problems? Tonight we’re tackling lease agreements and what you need to know. This as there has been some uncertainty with some students, in terms rental issues especially as South Africa is…

25 Nov 2020 52 min

Law Focus - Decriminalization of Sex Work

We discuss the decriminalization of sex work. Selling sex in South Africa has been illegal since at least the early 1900s and buying sex was criminalized in 2007. The country’s laws also prohibit other aspects of sex work, including running or owning a brothel, living off the earnings of “prostitution,”…

18 Nov 2020 54 min

Law Focus - Law and Order

Tonight we’re discussing law, order and vigilantism. This is whereby a person or group of people take the law into their own hands, in an attempt to serve justice. In recent weeks we have witnessed various events, on our news platforms where certain organizations, individuals or political parties took the…

11 Nov 2020 54 min

Law Focus - National Wills Week

This week an opportunity has been granted to members of the public to draft a basic Will by an attorney free of charge. Legal Aid South Africa (Legal Aid SA) has partnered with the Law Society of South Africa and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development and they will…

28 Oct 2020 42 min

Law Focus - Road Accidents: What You Should Know

Tonight’s topic we’re discussing whether you know what to do if it happens that you get into a road accident? With the lifting of lockdown restrictions last month, we have witnessed the carnage on our roads increasing. South Africa has an annual road death toll that is higher than the…

21 Oct 2020 51 min

Law Focus - Legal AID's GBV Plan

Tonight’s show we once again tackle Gender Based Violence and how as a country, we should continue fighting this plague that is constantly hanging over us. We will be in discussion with Legal Aid South Africa. The law firm has now joined the rest of the country in fighting the…

14 Oct 2020 55 min

Law Focus - Profile: Nonhlanhla Payne

Tonight we’re profiling a young dynamic, passionate and resilient woman who’s a candidate attorney and also lives with a physical disability named Blount's Tibia Vira. Nonhlanhla Payne will be taking us through her journey in the legal fraternity and some of the challenges that she experienced. The 28-year-old was once…

8 Oct 2020 54 min

Law Focus - Traditional practices vs Law

As the country wraps up Heritage Month we thought what better way to end the month than to discuss various traditional practices that could be infringing some of our human rights. Tonight, we look at when one has to apply the law when it to comes to tradition, you may…

30 Sep 2020 1 hour

Law Focus - Petitions

What is a petition? What constitutes a valid petition? Tonight we’re speaking about petitions. According to Change.org…an organisation that does petitions…their Global Digital Civic Engagement Index ranked South Africa as the top country for digital activism in the first half of 2020. It was quoted saying South Africa saw a…

23 Sep 2020 35 min

Law Focus - Gender Based Violence Part 2

Tonight we will be wrapping-up our two-series topic on Gender Based Violence. Last week we spoke to Francesca Fondse, a Gender Based Violence survivor and founder of the Women Integral Impact Network (WIIN), an organization that deals with GBV cases and femicide across the country. We will now be focusing…

17 Sep 2020 32 min

Law Focus - Gender Based Violence Part 1

What you can look forward to on Law Focus tonight, is a very sobering conversation on the plight of victims and survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in the country. Cases of GBV and rape keep escalating across the country and we have seen these topics also dominating news headlines and…

9 Sep 2020 46 min

Law Focus - Profile: Nokulunga Mgodlwa

Tonight, we're in conversation with Nokulunga Mgodlwa, a candidate attorney, young mother, strong-willed woman and a wife. Originally from Daveyton, in the East of Johannesburg, Nokulunga initially studied Human Resources Management before venturing into the legal fraternity. We'll be exploring the world of being a candidate attorney through Nokulunga's eyes.

2 Sep 2020 40 min

Law Focus - Tobacco Ban

Tonight's show is about the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association's (Fita) persistence, in continuing with their legal battle against government, despite the tobacco ban being lifted by President Cyril Ramaphosa, after the country moved to lockdown level 2 last week. Government at the time, argued that the ban was to protect the…

25 Aug 2020 48 min

Law Focus - Police Brutality Part 2

The show is now focusing on the second part of police brutality during the stringent lockdown regulations. In last week’s show, we spoke with Titus Mametse, an Alexandra resident who was unfortunate to be shot by the police earlier this year. We also featured the police watchdog, who are the…

19 Aug 2020 51 min