"April is the cruelest month," wrote T.S. Eliot. Judging from various legal brouhahas sprouting up from Canada to Hungary, this April might also be shaping up to be the craziest month. Here's a look at some notable legal news from around the globe.

NEXT TIME NO BUDS, BUDDY

Laws regarding the use of a phone while driving have gotten stricter with time. A Canadian man found out the hard way that even the perception of phone use is enough to warrant a ticket.

Patrick Henry Grzelak was driving home from work in October 2018. He was wearing earbuds, but his phone was in the glove compartment with a dead battery. He was pulled over by police in Surrey, British Columbia, after officers observed him wearing the earbuds. The police gave him a ticket for phone usage while driving, The Guardian reported.

Grzelak contested the ticket, and Justice Brent Adair's decision starts out as supportive: "The screen was not illuminated, no music, no conversation or anything else was coming through the earbuds." However, Adair continued: "That is not the end of the matter."

Adair focused on the earbuds being plugged into the iPhone, likening it to connecting a keyboard to a computer, therefore making the keyboard "part of the electronic device". He concluded that "the defendant was holding the device (or part of the device) in a position in which it could be used, i.e. his ears". Adair also referenced a previous case in 2015, which determined that holding a phone still constituted use of the phone, even if the battery was dead.

Grzelak's ticket cost him C$368 (US$276) and four points on his licence.

WIGGING OUT

Judges in Zimbabwe still wear horsehair wigs. It's a source of tension in the country, as some see it as a colonial holdover. Those tensions ratcheted up earlier this month when a leading business newspaper revealed the government spent thousands of dollars on imported wigs for local judges.

According to CNN, the Zimbabwe Independent reported that the country's Judicial Service Commission ordered 64 wigs from Stanley Ley Legal Outfitters in London. The wigs cost £1,850 ($2,428) each for a grand total of £118,400 ($155,000).

The purchase came under fire from lawyers, journalists and activists, who took to social media to express their displeasure. "The judicial wig (colonial) tradition continues in Zimbabwe with all its costs and controversy, without any meaningful benefit to access to justice," Arnold Tsunga, Africa director at the International Commission of Jurists, tweeted.

Hopewell Chin'ono, a leading Zimbabwean journalist and documentary filmmaker, wrote: "How do you explain a government allocating $155,000 for wigs to be bought in England when the same government is failing to buy bandages and betadine for infants in pediatric wards?"

Stanley Ginsburg, the owner of Stanley Ley, told CNN that the number of wigs ordered was "no way near the number" quoted in the Zimbabwe Independent. He also extolled the virtues of traditional legal dress. "In law, uniform is important – you look up to your judges and barristers," Ginsburg said. "What is wrong with tradition?"

WAIT, WHAT?

The Hungarian State Opera has revived its production of Porgy and Bess, which premiered in January 2018 and was the first time in 40 years that the show was not performed by an all-black cast. The casting caused more than its fair share of controversy, and the opera told Hungary Today that it took two years of negotiation with the copyright holders to get permission to "produce the Gershwins' masterpiece using excellent Hungarian singers".

The Gershwin Estate, according to Euronews, mandates that Porgy and Bess be performed by an all-black cast, according to the creators' wishes. In order to circumvent that rule for the revival, the opera has asked its nearly all-white cast to sign a statement saying they identify as African-American.

"I, the undersigned, hereby declare that African-American origin and consciousness are an integral part of my identity. That's why I am especially pleased to be able to perform in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess," the statement reads.

Hungarian broadcaster ATV said that 15 of 28 cast members have signed the statement, according to AP. Szilveszter Okovacs, the general director of the opera, told Euronews that there are no black artists in the company and the cast was under no obligation to sign the statement.

The Hungarian production changes the setting of the opera from Charleston, South Carolina, to a refugee camp in an airplane hangar. Seven more performances are planned for 2019.