10. Carmel Rickard's article in Legal Brief on what the NP govt's choice of LC Steyn as Chief Justice in 1959 says about Justice Minister Jeff Radebe's recent appointment of Moketedi Mpshe as an acting judge:

Rickard writes: "What does the case of L C Steyn have to say to us today? Mainly that we should have learnt how disastrous it is to appoint a government employee as a judge. This is even more so under our new democratic constitutional dispensation when we are entitled to demand from our judges that they be free of any special interest. That's why the Judicial Service Commission asks candidates so many questions about their background and their financial and political links and why they are asked to quit all such links when they take office. And that's also why the decision by the Minister of Justice to appoint Mokotedi Mpshe as an acting judge in Mafikeng is, quite correctly, the subject of protest."

9. The Pretoria News on the case of Pretoria District Court magistrate Ndileka Ndamase who stands accused of 42 charges of misconduct, including allegedly sleeping in court:

Hanti Otto reports that "When the hearing started on Monday, Ndamase wanted the presiding officer, senior magistrate Dirk van Greuning, and senior magistrate Gail Pretorius, who led the evidence against her, to recuse themselves, as they were white and spoke Afrikaans. She said she feared she would not get a fair hearing."

8. Rhoda Kadalie's opinion piece in the Guardian.co.uk on how Nelson Mandela avoided the exiles' disease (of bitterness and paranoia):

Kadalie writes: "Our former political prisoners, of whom Madiba is king, are a much nicer bunch than those who went into exile. My favourite recent story of Mandela was when I, as chair of the street renaming committee, called his office to inform him of the calls for Hertzog Boulevard to be renamed after him. His response was: ‘I shan't replace any former Afrikaner political hero, thank you very much.' And that was that. Dare we conclude that 27 years of prison preserved Mandela's humanity in ways that exile could never have. Or is this too sacrilegious a thought?"

7. The Mercury reporting (here and here) on the unsuccessful prosecution of VIP unit policeman, Muzingaye Mxolisi Dladla, for shooting at an 84 year old motorist, Dirk Matthee, on June 5, 2008 while escorting ANC president Jacob Zuma:

According to Tania Broughton Matthee testified that he had been unable to pull over in time for a VIP convey, as there was rush hour traffic. A car from the convoy had then cut in front of him. "Suddenly a person appeared on the passenger side. The window must have been open because he was sitting on top of the door, holding a firearm. A shot went off and it hit the left top of my windscreen, shattering it."

In his statement to police Dladla claimed that Matthee had driven aggressively and waved a gun. He claimed: "At this point I was armed with a 9mm Uzi, which I pointed in the direction of this vehicle, showing the driver to lower his firearm, which he didn't. At this stage my only option was to fire a warning shot [at the car], as all other routes to avoid confrontation were not successful."

Dladla was acquitted.

6. Karima Brown's article in Business Day on the effect the recent love child revelations have had on Jacob Zuma's standing within the ANC:

Brown writes that "Punters, friends and foes all concur that Zuma is politically vulnerable. Even his aides and those in the inner circles of the ruling elite have expressed deep concern over Zuma's messy private life." She quotes one unnamed alliance leader as saying: "There are people out there waiting for him to make a mistake and he should take it as a lesson, clearly he is vulnerable in the ANC."

5. Robert Brand's blog on Business Day's lacklustre efforts to catch up with the internet age:

Brand notes that despite promises to the contrary by editor Peter Bruce the newspaper's website "remains a mess. Still having Monday's column by your editor as the headline piece on your opinion and analysis page on Friday is no good. And if you are going to blog, then the least you should do is post from time to time. After promising readers a daily blog, Bruce last posted on December 13, and some other staff writers seemed to have thrown in the towel after just one attempt. What's more, there is no information about the writers on their blogs, and the blogs are in now way mainstreamed as part of the newspaper's offering to readers. It is as if someone decided to tack on staff blogs, and then forgot about them."

4. The Carte Blanche report on the possible involvement of bank insiders in a spate of armed robberies of bank clients:

It seems that gangs have taken to following individuals home after they withdraw large sums of money from their bank branch. The programme quotes private investigator Darryl Els as saying that he believes there is an insider element to many of these cases:

"We've had clients" he told the programme,"where they say that on the robbers approaching them they say, 'Hand over the R60 000 that you've drawn!' And this indicates that the only way that they can know this amount is that they're working in cooperation with the teller who would then counts out individually the [money] and hand it to the client."

3. The report in Beeld on the murder of Theunis Venter (85) and his Suzie (83) in Mayville, Pretoria:

Hilda Fourie notes that this is the sixth murder in six weeks of elderly residents of the city. Other OAPs killed since January 8 this year are: Dr. Francois Steenkamp (71); Mrs. Elsa Blignaut, 83; Mrs Ria van den Bergh (65), and Mrs Kitty Botha (83).

2. Anthony Butler article on the New ANC's complicated relationship with ‘factionalism':

Butler notes that many ANC activists "today recognise that alleged controls on factionalism in fact result from one faction's attempt to achieve ascendency over others. Mbeki's incumbent faction claimed to speak on behalf of the whole ANC, while dissenting voices were silenced as factionalist." Moreover, it "took a faction to stop Mbeki's sinister designs. As political theorist Edmund Burke observed more than two centuries ago, factions can "speedily communicate the alarm of any evil design ... fathom it with common counsel, and oppose it with united strength": they can do good."

1. Tim du Plessis' in Beeld on why the ANC need its own FW de Klerk (rather than another Mandela):

Du Plessis argues that what South Africa really needs is an FW for the ANC: A revolutionary from within who can free the ruling party from the remaining part of its ‘master narrative' - that which makes the ANC what it is. Just as FW gave the final killer blow to the NP's outmoded belief system, someone needs to stand up and do the same with the ANC's liberation movement ideology.

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