December,9 2016.
For Creamer Media in Johannesburg, I’m Thabi Madiba.

Making headlines:
Parliament pays tribute to former Chapter 9 heads
Ghana opposition leader confident of election victory
And, ICC to discuss South Africa's failure to arrest Sudan's Bashir

 

Parliament yesterday paid tribute to former heads of Chapter 9 institutions.
They included former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela, former chairperson of the Financial and Fiscal Commission Bongani Khumalo, former South African Human Rights Commission head Lawrence Mushwana, and the outgoing chair of the Commission for Gender Equality, Mfanozelwe Shozi.

Deputy Justice Minister John Jeffery said there was more interest in these institutions than ever before.

He mentioned the "robust and vigorous" exchanges between Madonsela and Parliament’s justice committee. The interactions would continue to be vigorous, he said.

 

Ghana's main opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo said yesterday he was "quietly confident" he had defeated President John Mahama in a December 7 election and said his New Patriotic Party had also taken a majority of seats in parliament.

The electoral commission is yet to release results from Wednesday's vote but the opposition said it had tabulated results from constituencies and based its confidence on those figures.

 

International Criminal Court judges asked South Africa yesterday to send representatives to a hearing next year to determine whether it had breached its obligation to arrest Sudan's President Omar Al Bashir in June.

The public hearing will further strain already frayed relations between the war crimes court and African leaders, many of whom accuse the mainly European-backed institution of singling out Africa for prosecution.

The decision of President Jacob Zuma to let Bashir depart after an African Union summit unleashed a storm of protest in June, prompting legal challenges against the government and leading indirectly to South Africa's and later Gambia's decision to withdraw from the court.

In a ruling issued yesterday, pre-trial judges at the court scheduled for April 7 a hearing at which the court's prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, South Africa's government and the United Nations could discuss the alleged non-compliance.

 

Also making headlines:
Madonsela 'murder plot' whistleblower arrested

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That’s a roundup of news making headlines today