{"id":383933,"date":"2020-03-23T09:20:17","date_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=383933"},"modified":"2020-03-23T09:20:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:20:17","slug":"new-coronavirus-rules-for-south-african-courts-and-legal-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/383933\/new-coronavirus-rules-for-south-african-courts-and-legal-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"New coronavirus rules for South African courts and legal cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa, Mogoeng Mogoeng, has issued a new directive which will place tighter restrictions on courts to limit the spread of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n<p>The directive &#8211; which was issued on Friday (19 March) for a period of 60 days &#8211; state that only people with a material interest in a case will be admitted into the country&#8217;s courts.<\/p>\n<p>These include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Litigants;<\/li>\n<li>Accused;<\/li>\n<li>Witnesses, those who may be needed to provide support such as those accompanying children;<\/li>\n<li>Victims of domestic violence and\/or sexual abuse, elderly and people with disabilities;<\/li>\n<li>Family members;<\/li>\n<li>Representatives of special interest or support groups and members of the media.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The directive says non-essential visitors will only be allowed into the court precinct with the permission of the head of court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Audio-visual remand centres in Correctional Centres linked to Magistrates Court must be used for purposes of the postponement of cases where accused persons are in custody,&#8221; Mogoeng said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No witnesses who are in foreign countries shall be summonsed to attend a trial in the Republic and in instances where such cases cannot be postponed to a further date such testimony may be obtained through electronic mean.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can read the official directive below:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View Justice Department Directive on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/452852382\/Justice-Department-Directive#from_embed\">Justice Department Directive<\/a> by <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View BusinessTech's profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/413742166\/BusinessTech#from_embed\">BusinessTech<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_26470\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"Justice Department Directive \" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/452852382\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;access_key=key-YxACgk4WE0TlBMelkHXS\" width=\"640\" height=\"853\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7080062794348508\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read; <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/banking\/383841\/nedbank-announces-payment-holidays-and-other-measures-to-help-south-africans-hit-by-coronavirus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Nedbank announces payment holidays and other measures to help South Africans hit by a coronavirus<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa, Mogoeng Mogoeng, has issued a new directive which will place tighter restrictions on courts to limit the spread of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":54789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-383933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383933"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383959,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383933\/revisions\/383959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}