Quote of the week

[T]he moral point of the matter is never reached by calling what happened by the name of ‘genocide’ or by counting the many millions of victims: extermination of whole peoples had happened before in antiquity, as well as in modern colonization. It is reached only when we realize this happened within the frame of a legal order and that the cornerstone of this ‘new law’ consisted of the command ‘Thou shall kill,’ not thy enemy but innocent people who were not even potentially dangerous, and not for any reason of necessity but, on the contrary, even against all military and other utilitarian calculations. … And these deeds were not committed by outlaws, monsters, or raving sadists, but by the most respected members of respectable society.

Hannah Arendt
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on The Banality of Evil
12 February 2007

Quicker, cheaper divorce coming

The Independent Online reports that a draft law paving the way for divorces in a regional court, instead of the more costly high court, is expected to be tabled in parliament in 2007.

Is the legislature expecting a new spike in divorces now that they have legalised same-sex marriage? From anecdotal evidence it seems that same sex couples are not rushing to the magistrates offices across South Africa to get married so even the most homophobc person could not argue that there will be a flood of new divorce cases.

This means that the propose legislation suggests that in a moment of sanity the higher ups at the Department of Justice or Home Affiars have realised how silly it is to try and limit divorce by making the process expensive and cumbersome.

Whether the advocate’s profession is going to be thrilled by this move is, of course, another matter.

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