A group of Rhodes University students and employees challenging the university’s mandatory Covid-19 vaccine policy in court, will know on Wednesday whether they have cleared the first legal and technical hurdle of ‘urgency’ before they can even argue the merits of their case. The case was heard virtually after Rhodes University’s senior counsel Izak Smuts declined to share the closed physical confines of a courtroom with the challengers and their lawyers, all of whom it was suggested wer.
Former Rhodes University student Yolanda Dyantyi was permanently excluded from Rhodes University for her role in the #RUReferenceList protests. This week she challenged the ban in the Supreme Court of Appeal. Former Rhodes University student Yolanda Dyantyi was permanently excluded from Rhodes.
Judgement reserved in Makhanda versus Grahamstown rename ruling By Adrienne Carlisle - 26 April 2021 The decision to change the name of Grahamstown to Makhanda is being challenged in the Grahamstown High Court. Image: WIKIMEDIA
A full bench of three high court judges on Monday reserved judgment on the issue.
One of the co-chairs of a local organization called Keep Grahamstown Grahamstown (KGG), Sigidla Ndumo, appealed against a 2019 judgment which upheld sport, art and culture minister Nathi Mthethwa’s decision to change the name of the small city.
Advocate Izak Smuts, SC, for Ndumo on Monday argued that the entire process leading up to the decision to change the name from Grahamstown to Makhanda had been fatally flawed, and that the decision itself was therefore unlawful, unreasonable and irrational.