JOURNAL: Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal

The latest Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal is available here. 

Its editorial, by our Professor Christa Rautenbach, reads:

The first 11 articles in the first issue of 2014 deal with global legal topics ranging from outer space to domestic South African matters and legal challenges in other African countries, such as Uganda, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.Anél Ferreira-Snyman discusses legal challenges relating to the commercial use of outer space, with specific reference to space tourism. She points out that the current legal framework is outdated and no longer deals adequately with the rapidly developing space tourism industry. Further away from the moon, although it deals with creations of the mind and is just as mysterious for the average person, is the contribution of André van der Walt and Richard Shay, which analyses the South African Constitutional Court's treatment of intellectual property. They focus on the methodology that the Court has formulated to assess if state interference complies with constitutional provisions to determine if state intervention into property interests has been legitimate. The third contribution, by Joel Baloyi, also deals with a creation of the mind, namely copyright. He attempts through a comparative analysis to demystify the role of copyright as a tool for economic development in Africa and criticises the stifling effect the transferability principle has on the effectiveness of copyright in certain African countries.

Bradley Slade discusses the differences between the concepts "public purpose" and "public interest" in the context of third party transfers as a result of property being expropriated for the realisation of public purposes in the fourth contribution. The influence of the Constitution of South Africa, 1996 on organ transplants is the topic of the fifth contribution, by Debbie Labuschagne and Pieter Carstens. They come to the conclusion that the South African government has failed to provide an effective legal framework to relieve the shortage of human organs available for transplantation. Sixthly, Lize Mills discusses recently proposed regulations prohibiting the advertising and promotion of infant formulae and other products marketed as being suitable for infants or young children with the purpose of promoting breast-feeding. The last five articles move further afield and deal with legal issues elsewhere in Africa. Dana van der Merwe gives a comparative overview of the relationship between digital information in certain legal fields in South Africa and Uganda. Nazreen Shaik-Premanov examines Zimbabwe's Marange conflict diamond situation and Lovemore Chiduza analyses the Zimbabwean constitutional provisions on judicial independence. Peter Obutte scrutinises ICT laws in Nigeria and the last two authors, Serges Kamga and Ogechukwu Ajoku, reflect on addressing human rights violations by extractive industries in both South Africa and Nigeria.

Four notes are also published in this issue. The first one is an overview article by Christa Rautenbach dealing with the modern-day impact of cultural and religious diversity as reflected in the book on "Managing Family Justice in Diverse Societies". The other four notes are case discussions. The first one is a discussion of the case of Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe v Louis Karel Fick by Erika de Wet. The second one is a discussion of the case of Le Sueur v eThekwini Municipality by Warren Freedman, and the last one is a discussion of the case of Apollo Tyres v South Africa (Pty) Ltd v CCMA by Shamier Ebrahim.