SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa's "shebeen" operators have registered a court victory over local administrators, who tried to restrict their unlicensed bar trade.
The Constitutional Court criticised the state attorney and liquor board, in the province covering Johannesburg and Pretoria, for failing to address an ambiguity in the legal status of shebeens.
The court said the absence of a proper definition for such hostelries had led to their "vulnerability and marginalisation". So the court itself decided to define a shebeen as an unlicensed operation whose main business is liquor and is selling fewer than 720 beer bottles a week.
Ruling, Judge Kate O'Regan said the legislature could amend the definition as soon as it wished, prompting one legal commentator to remark: "It's all very Irish in a very South African way."