Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as negligence involves harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to other people or property.
Bolton v. Stone[1951] AC 850, [1951] 1 All ER 1078 is a leading House of Lords case in the tort of negligence, establishing that a defendant is not negligent if the damage to the plaintiff was not a reasonably foreseeable consequence of his conduct. The plaintiff was hit by a cricket ball which had been hit out of the ground; the defendants were members of the club committee.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is a supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction.
Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 is an English tort law case that lays down the typical rule for assessing the appropriate standard of reasonable care in negligence cases involving skilled professionals such as doctors. This rule is known as the Bolam test, and states that if a doctor reaches the standard of a responsible body of medical opinion, they are not negligent. Bolam was rejected in the 2015 Supreme Court decision of Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board in matters of informed consent.
New Brunswick Broadcasting Co v Nova Scotia (Speaker of the House of Assembly) is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision wherein the court has ruled that parliamentary privilege is a part of the unwritten convention in the Constitution of Canada. Therefore, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms do not apply to members of Nova Scotia House of Assembly when they exercise their inherent privileges of refusing strangers from entering the House.
Chapter Two of the Constitution of South Africa contains the Bill of Rights, a human rights charter that protects the civil, political and socio-economic rights of all people in South Africa. The rights in the Bill apply to all law, including the common law, and bind all branches of the government, including the national executive, Parliament, the judiciary, provincial governments, and municipal councils. Some provisions, such as those prohibiting unfair discrimination, also apply to the actions of private persons.
Royscot Trust Ltd v Rogerson[1991] EWCA Civ 12 is an English contract law case on misrepresentation. It examines the Misrepresentation Act 1967 and addresses the extent of damages available under s 2(1) for negligent misrepresentation.
Aptheker v. Secretary of State, 378 U.S. 500 (1964), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court on the right to travel and passport restrictions as they relate to Fifth Amendment due process rights and First Amendment free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of association rights. It is the first case in which the US Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of personal restrictions on the right to travel abroad.
Johnstone v Bloomsbury Health Authority [1992] QB 333 is an English contract law case, concerning implied terms and unfair terms under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977.
Mogoeng Thomas Reetsang Mogoeng is a South African jurist who served as the Chief Justice of South Africa from 8 September 2011 until his retirement on 11 October 2021.
Investigating Directorate: Serious Economic Offences and Others v Hyundai Motor Distributors (Pty) Ltd and Others; In Re Hyundai Motor Distributors (Pty) Ltd and Others v Smit NO and Others, an important case in South African law, was heard in the Constitutional Court on March 16, 2000, with judgment handed down on August 25. Chaskalson P, Langa DP, Goldstone J, Kriegler J, Madala J, Mokgoro J, Ngcobo J, O'Regan J, Sachs J, Yacoob J and Cameron AJ were the judges.
South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt et al., a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted." Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society.
The South African judiciary has broad powers of judicial review under the Constitution of South Africa. Courts are empowered to pronounce on the legality and constitutionality of exercises of public power, including administrative action, executive action, and the passage of acts of Parliament. Though informed by the common law principles that guided judicial review during the apartheid era, contemporary judicial review is authorised by and grounded in constitutional principles. In the case of administrative action, it is also codified in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000.
In law, South African constitutional litigation is the area dealing with the rules and principles concerning constitutional matters in the country of South Africa. It includes the jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the High Court of South Africa, the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa, and certain other specialist courts. It also includes the consideration of rules peculiar to these courts that are relevant to constitutional litigation, such as the admission of an amicus curiae, the duty to raise a constitutional matter as early as possible in proceedings, and the duty to join the relevant organ of state in a case involving a constitutional issue.
Chapman v Hearse is a significant case in common law related to duty of care, reasonable foreseeability and novus actus interveniens within the tort of negligence. The case concerned three parties; Chapman who drove negligently, Dr Cherry who assisted him on the side of the road, and Hearse who, in driving negligently, killed Dr Cherry while he was assisting Chapman. In the Supreme Court of South Australia, Hearse was found liable for damages to Dr Cherry's estate under the Wrongs Act 1936. Hearse sought to reclaim damages from Chapman due to his alleged contributory negligence; Chapman was found liable to one quarter of the damages. Chapman appealed the case to the High Court of Australia on August 8, 1961, but it was dismissed as the results of his negligence were deemed reasonably foreseeable. A duty of care was established between Chapman and the deceased and his claim of novus actus interveniens was rejected. Dr Cherry was considered a 'rescuer' and his respective rights remained.
Kwok Wing Hang and others v Chief Executive in Council and another is a Hong Kong constitutional case concerning the Prohibition on Face Covering Regulation (PFCR) and Emergency Regulations Ordinance (ERO).
New Nation Movement NPC and Others v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others, [2020] ZACC 11, is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, handed down on 11 June 2020, which declared that the Constitution requires that citizens be allowed to stand for election to the National Assembly and provincial legislatures as independents without having to join or form a political party. The declaration was suspended for 24 months to allow Parliament to modify the electoral laws to comply. The majority judgment was written by Justice Madlanga and a concurring opinion was written by Justice Jafta; these opinions were supported by eight of the nine judges hearing the case. Justice Froneman filed a dissenting opinion.
My Vote Counts NPC v Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and Another is a decision in the Constitutional Court of South Africa which established a constitutional right of access to information about the sources of political party funding. The court held unanimously that the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 was inconsistent with the Constitution insofar as it failed to give effect to that right. The matter was heard on 13 March 2018 and decided on 21 June 2018, with a majority judgment written by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
DE v RH is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa in the law of delict. The court abolished the third-party delictual claim for adultery, holding unanimously that society's contemporary boni mores indicated that the act of adultery by a third party lacks wrongfulness and therefore does not give rise to delictual liability. The judgment was handed down without papers on 19 June 2015 and was written by Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, with a separate concurrence by Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng.
Ex Parte Minister of Safety and Security and Others: In Re S v Walters and Another is a 2002 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa concerning the use of force to arrest criminal suspects. The court invalidated section 49(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977, which provided that the killing of certain fugitive suspects constituted justifiable homicide. Writing on behalf of a unanimous court, Justice Johann Kriegler held that the Bill of Rights required that force should be used in arrests only where such force is reasonable and necessary.
