Why Molao declines foreign-law questions
Molao covers South Africa and Botswana. A guard detects foreign-law questions and declines them, then surfaces genuinely persuasive foreign authority where local courts have used it.
Molao is built for two jurisdictions, and it is honest about that boundary rather than pretending to reason over law it does not hold.
The jurisdiction guard
When you ask a question that turns on the law of another country, Molao detects it and declines, explaining that the question is outside its jurisdiction. No search is run and no research credit is used. This protects you from an answer built on law Molao cannot vouch for.
Persuasive, not binding
Foreign judgments are not binding in South Africa or Botswana. A local court may consider them as persuasive authority — section 39(1)(c) of the South African Constitution expressly allows a court to consider foreign law when interpreting the Bill of Rights.
How persuasive foreign authority is surfaced
Where a local judgment in the corpus itself relies on a foreign case, Molao shows that foreign case in a separate, clearly-marked stream at the bottom of an answer — labelled as persuasive and not binding, and shown only because a local court used it. It is never presented as if it governs.
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