Breaking the Berlin Wall in South Africa’s Criminal Justice System As a young man in high school, I spent many afternoons lost in the pages of Scotland Yard novels. I was captivated by the detective: methodical, sharp-minded, and quietly determined. He was not a bureaucrat chasing targets, but an artisan of truth, standing between chaos and order with intellect, patience, and institutional support. To my young mind, justice worked because the system respected those who did the hard work. Reality…

A Determination That Redefines the 2030 Capacity Cliff from Planning Risk toLegal Certainty On 31 March 2025, the then Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Dr D.T. George, issued his determination on the exemption applications submitted by Eskom SOC (Pty) Ltd in terms of Section 59 of the National Environmental Management: Air Quality Act, 2004[1]. The decision received measured coverage in the energy press. It deserved considerably more. The determination did not merely resolve a regulatory dispute about particulate…

The soulful, rhythmic pulse of Stimela’s “whispering in the dark” has long served as a metaphor for the unseen struggles of the South African people. Today, however, that whisper has moved from the shadows of history into the brightly lit corridors of the South African Police Service (SAPS). It is no longer a song of hope, but a siren of institutional decay. The recent media briefing by suspended Mpumalanga Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Semakaleng Daphney Manamela, has cracked open a door…

Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums (GLAM) have long been regarded as neutral spaces of preservation and display. Yet historically, they have functioned as instruments of power, deciding whose stories are told, whose histories and herstories are preserved, and whose voices are amplified. In SA, this legacy is inseparable from colonial and apartheid frameworks that systematically excluded Black artists from institutional visibility. It is within this context that “The Pathway to Education Lies Between Thorns,” a travelling exhibition of works by…

I write this not just as a South African, but as an African. A child of a continent whose borders were carved by outsiders, whose people have always been more connected than divided. I write with anger, with sorrow and with a deep sense of betrayal. Many who walk the streets of South Africa today carrying foreign passports did not abandon their homes lightly. They were driven out – by poverty that suffocates hope, by political instability and tribalism that…

In his Hiddingh-Currie award-winning autobiography, “His story is history,” published by Unisa Press, Dr Tlou Setumu asked a daring question: When does life begin? In the same text, Setumu offers different answers from different people. Some say life begins at 40, others say at birth, there are those who are saying in a womb, while others say when a person starts to stand on their own. Indeed, people perceive the beginning of life differently. This is also the same with…

There is something deeply revealing about the speed and urgency with which a society attends to particular matters. Urgency is never neutral. It signals what is deemed important, what is valued, and, by implication, what can be discarded with little hesitation. In contemporary South Africa, one of the matters that has recently been addressed with remarkable speed is the demolition of houses in Thornville, just outside Pietermaritzburg. Homes constructed on land owned by an Eskom subsidiary, National Transmission Company of…

As the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry enters its critical final phase in April 2026, it has become a laboratory for a disturbing new form of legal defence: “digital denialism.” From the high-stakes testimony about the “Big Five” cartel to the shadowy dealings of figures like Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, a familiar, defiant refrain echoes through the hearings: “Produce the evidence.” This defiance often comes even as the Commission is presented with clear, timestamped WhatsApp conversations and geolocated data. To the layperson, this…

In the latest QS World University Rankings, Unisa is ranked highly in six subjects, as opposed to one in the 2022 academic year, while the Department of Higher Education and Training ranks the institution fourth in the country in terms of its creative outputs and innovations during 2024. On 25 March 2026, QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Ranking released results for institutions in the subject areas in which such institutions have been nominated for evaluation. This includes the scores and…

In the quiet hours of a South African morning, the landscape is defined not by its natural beauty, but by its steel. From the electric fences of Sandton to the high-tensile mesh surrounding the mining shafts of the Northwest, South Africa has become a nation of fortifications. Recently, this “fortress” has taken on a more olive-drab hue. With the deployment of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) to combat illegal mining and gang violence—at a cost exceeding R823 million—the…