Talk:Magistrate's court (South Africa)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Common use is established by the proposer, and there is no objection. Andrewa (talk) 12:28, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

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Magistrates' Court (South Africa) → Magistrate's Court (South Africa) – In South African usage, the singular form is "magistrate's court" not "magistrates' court".

• The official singular form is "magistrate's court": see the definition of "court" on page 5 of the Magistrates' Courts Act.
• The media uses the form "Magistrate's Court": see, just from the last few days of news, from Independent Newspapers: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]; and from The Times: [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14].

I'm also open to the possibility that "Magistrate's court (South Africa)" or "Magistrates' Courts of South Africa" would be better titles. htonl (talk) 21:49, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reorganization

The magistrate's courts in South Africa are being reorganised, a process going on since about 2010 or 2014 and also known as 're-establishment'. The most prominent aspect of this reorganisation is that the legal districts will equivalent with the municipalities, which means that many previous magisterial districts will live on either as sub-districts or only as historical areas. This is called 'rationalisation' (supposedly the new division are better accommodated to population distribution in present times) but the process is also aimed at 'enhancing access to justice'.

It seems that the present article needs to be updated. The list of former districts could be kept as historical information, but a general description of the reorganisation process is heavily needed and when the district boundaries differ from those of the administrative districts (the government suggests that this may happen in a few cases when strict adherence to municipal boundaries would impede access justice) it could be mentioned somewhere.

Some sources:

• http://www.sheriffs.org.za/_literature_120824/Creation_of_new_Magisterial_Districts_and_Re-Establishment_of_District_Courts_for_Gauteng_and_North
• http://www.gov.za/address-advocate-michael-masutha-minister-justice-and-correctional-services-occasion-launch

There are also plans for re-establishment of separate, specialist courts, notably the Sexual Offences Courts, see [15], [16] and [17]. Bever (talk) 19:25, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

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Traditional Courts

The article states that Magistrates' Courts "... are the courts of first instance for most criminal cases except for the most serious crimes". Question: What about traditional courts? As I understand it, they still handle a considerable number of minor criminal cases (see e.g. T. W. Bennett, Customary Criminal Law in the South African Legal System. in: Future of African Customary Law, Cambridge University Press 2011). 178.5.158.65 (talk) 16:40, 25 July 2017 (UTC)