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[2017] ZASCA 127
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Mtshali NO and Others v Buffalo Conservation 97 (Pty) Ltd (250/2017) [2017] ZASCA 127 (29 September 2017)
THE
SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL OF SOUTH AFRICA
JUDGMENT
Reportable
Case
No: 250/2017
In
the matter between:
DR
DI MTSHALI NO
FIRST APPELLANT
THE
NATIONAL DIRECTORATE OF ANIMAL HEALTH
OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
AFFAIRS
OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
SECOND APPELLANT
THE
MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENTAL
AFFAIRS
OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
THIRD APPELLANT
and
BUFFALO
CONSERVATION 97 (PTY)
LTD
RESPONDENT
Neutral
citation:
Mtshali
& others v Buffalo Conservation 97 (Pty) Ltd
(250/2017)
[2017] ZASCA 127
(29 September 2017)
Coram:
Cachalia, Bosielo JJA, Plasket, Lamont
and Rogers AJJA
Heard:
31 August 2017
Delivered:
29 September 2017
Summary
:
Application for condonation and re-instatement of lapsed
appeal – adequacy of explanation for delay – delay
extreme
and explanation unacceptable – application dismissed
with costs.
ORDER
On
appeal from:
Gauteng Division of the
High Court, Pretoria (Baqwa J sitting as court of first instance):
The
application for condonation and for the reinstatement of the appeal
is dismissed with costs.
JUDGMENT
Plasket
AJA (Cachalia, Bosielo JJA, Lamont and Rogers AJJA concurring)
[1]
The Buffalo (
Syncerus
caffer
)
is, in Southern Africa, an iconic animal. It is a large, aggressive
bovine, possessed of fearsome horns, and a temper to match.
As part
of the Big Five,
[1]
it is an
animal of considerable importance for the tourism and hunting
industries, as well as, more generally, for ecological bio-diversity.
Unfortunately, buffalo are carriers of two endemic bovine diseases,
Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) and Corridor Disease (CD), and
are
susceptible to other bovine diseases introduced to the African
continent, such as Bovine Tuberculosis (BTB) and
Brucella
Abortis
(BA) or Bovine Brucellosis. Because of the risk of these diseases
being passed onto cattle, with catastrophic consequences for
the
cattle industry and the economy generally, the movement of buffalo is
tightly controlled.
[2]
This appeal, from a judgment of Baqwa J in the Gauteng Division of
the High Court, Pretoria, concerns whether the appellants
are liable
in delict to the respondent for failures to conduct tests,
principally for CD, on disease-free buffalo bred by the respondent,
and to issue permits to authorise the translocation of these buffalo.
The merits and quantum having been separated, Baqwa J found
at the
conclusion of the trial before him that the respondent – the
plaintiff in the court below – had indeed established
the
factual basis for, and the necessary elements of, delictual
liability. This appeal is with his leave.
[3]
The first appellant, Dr Dumisani Mtshali, was at the time of the
events giving rise to this appeal, employed by the State as
the
Director of Veterinary Services for the Northern Region of
KwaZulu-Natal. The second appellant is the National Directorate
of
Animal Health in the Department of Agriculture and Environmental
Affairs in the national sphere of government. This directorate,
according to the respondent, is responsible for testing animals for
animal diseases and for granting authority to move buffalo
from one
place to another. The third appellant is the Minister of Agriculture
and Environmental Affairs in the national sphere
of government. He is
cited as the head of the Department of Agriculture and Environmental
Affairs.
[4]
The department over which the minister presides, and its officials,
administer and enforce the Animal Diseases Act 35 of 1984
and the
regulations made by the minister in terms of that Act. They are
enjoined, the respondent avers, to control the spread of
animal
diseases, test animals for diseases at the request of persons who
wish to move buffalo from one place to another, to authorise
the
issuing of permits for the movement of buffalo, and to approve and
register land where buffalo may lawfully be kept. They are
required,
the respondent says, to perform these functions ‘in a proper
and efficient manner and without being negligent’.
[5]
The respondent is Buffalo Conservation 97 (Pty) Ltd, a company that
conducted a buffalo breeding program, first at Phinda and
later at
Magudu in KwaZulu-Natal. It bred disease-free buffalo from buffalo
infected with CD. Its complaint, in a nutshell, is
that for a number
of years it was precluded from moving its disease-free buffalo from
Magudu because the relevant State veterinary
officials refused to
conduct the necessary tests on them so that a permit to authorise
their translocation could be issued.
[6]
Interesting as the issues are that arise from the appeal, it is not
necessary for us to engage with them. At the hearing of
the appeal,
we decided to hear argument on two preliminary issues before
considering the merits, if necessary. They were first,
whether the
appeal was perempted and secondly whether to grant condonation for
the late filing of the record and allow the re-instatement
of the
appeal, which had lapsed.
[7]
Having heard counsel on these issues, we made an order dismissing the
application for condonation and for the re-instatement
of the appeal,
with costs. We undertook to furnish our reasons later. These are
those reasons.
Condonation
and re-instatement: the facts
[8]
The material facts giving rise to the application for condonation and
re-instatement are largely common cause. I shall set out
a chronology
of events before I consider the explanations for the delays in
pursuing the appeal.
[9]
The court below’s judgment was handed down on 10 December 2014.
Thereafter, an application for leave to appeal was filed.
It was
slightly out of time and an application for condonation accompanied
it. On 1 June 2015, Baqwa J granted condonation as well
as leave to
appeal to this court. The notice of appeal was filed on 30 June 2015,
13 days out of time. It consequently also had
to be accompanied by a
condonation application.
[10]
The record had to be filed by 20 October 2015. On 13 October 2015,
the appellants’ attorney requested an extension of
time from
the respondent’s attorney. It was agreed between them that the
record would be filed by 20 November 2015. On 17
November 2015, the
appellants’ attorney sought and received a further extension of
time: it was agreed that the record would
be filed by 4 December
2015.
[11]
The record was not filed by 4 December 2015. On 8 December 2015, the
registrar of this court notified the parties that the
appeal had
lapsed.
[12]
The respondent’s attorney stated in his answering affidavit
that he had advised his client of the lapsing of the appeal.
He also
warned that an application for condonation could be expected within
the following few weeks.
[13]
No application was forthcoming. In the face of the appellants’
attorney’s silence, the respondent’s attorney
proceeded
to have his bills of costs drafted and taxed. He also employed expert
witnesses with a view to amending the particulars
of claim in order
to increase the quantum of the claim.
[14]
In due course, the respondent’s bills of costs were taxed, the
taxing master’s
allocaturs
being issued on 12 September 2016. They were presented to the
appellants’ attorney, together with a demand for payment, on
15
September 2016. On 14 October 2016, a second demand was made,
whereupon the appellants’ attorney paid the bills of costs
in
two payments – a payment of R694 487.89 to the
respondent’s attorney and a payment of R36 833.62 to the
respondent’s attorney’s Pretoria correspondent.
[15]
On 5 December 2016, an expert summary was filed and served by the
respondent’s attorney. A notice of intention to amend
the
particulars of claim was filed and served on 6 December 2016. The
respondent’s attorney applied for a trial date on 13
December
2016. By this stage, not a word had been heard from the appellants’
attorney since 2 December 2015, more than a
year before.
[16]
On 15 December 2016, the appellants’ attorney broke his
silence. On that day the record and an application for condonation
were served on the respondent’s attorney’s Bloemfontein
correspondent. The appellants’ Bloemfontein correspondent
also
tried to serve the record and the application of the registrar of
this court. The registrar refused to accept service because
one page
of the record was illegible and various photographs were not in
colour. The application for condonation was dated 23 November
2015,
about three weeks prior to the date of its service on the
respondent’s Bloemfontein correspondent.
[17]
The respondent’s attorney set about drafting an answering
affidavit to the application for condonation. He deposed to
this
affidavit on 8 February 2017. He sent it to Bloemfontein for filing
and service. On 13 February 2017 he was informed by his
Bloemfontein
correspondent that the registrar of this court had refused to accept
the affidavit because the record and the application
for condonation
had still not been filed.
[18]
The record and the application for condonation were eventually filed
on 17 March 2017.
The
explanation for the delay
[19]
The appellants’ attorney has attempted to explain the long
delay in the proper filing of the record. It commences in
October
2015.
[20]
It was not possible for the record to be filed by 20 October 2015
because it was discovered that one of the days of the proceedings
in
the trial (6 October 2014) had not been transcribed. It was for this
reason that an extension of time was sought and granted
until 20
November 2015. The transcript of the proceedings was received by the
appellants’ attorney on 14 October 2015 and
forwarded by him to
iAfrica Transcriptions (iAfrica), the firm that was preparing the
record.
[21]
The appellants’ attorney was able to present counsel with a
draft index for settling on 16 November 2015. Counsel commented
on
the draft index the following day but said that it was necessary to
obtain a discovery affidavit that had been put to one of
the
witnesses in the trial. This necessitated the second extension –
to 4 December 2015 – as neither the appellants’
attorney
nor his counsel had a copy of the affidavit.
[22]
On 2 December 2015, two days before the record was to be filed, the
appellants’ attorney wrote to the respondent’s
attorney
to ask if the latter had a copy of the discovery affidavit. The
respondent’s attorney wrote back on 4 December 2015
to ask why
a discovery affidavit had to be included in the record. He received
no response and heard nothing more from the appellants’
attorney for over a year.
[23]
The explanation, so far, creates the impression that the record, but
for the missing discovery affidavit, was more or less
ready for
filing. Indeed, the appellants’ attorney stated:
‘
In
the meantime, in consultation with counsel I finalised the remainder
of the appeal record for preparation by iAfrica by 4 December
2015.
Ms Carol Smal, who is employed by iAfrica and who was preparing the
appeal record, informed me on 2 December 2015 that the
only document
outstanding in the appeal record at that date was the discovery
affidavit.’
He
stated too that by 2 December 2015 he ‘still anticipated . . .
that it might be possible to deliver the record on or before
4
December 2015’.
[24]
The appellants’ attorney was advised by counsel on 4 December
2015 that if the affidavit could not be found, it could
be omitted
from the record. Despite having stated that he believed the record
could be filed in time, for a reason that remains
unexplained, the
appellants’ attorney then stated that he ‘now understood
. . . that the record would not be ready
for filing by 4 December
2015’. Despite this, he never requested the respondent’s
attorney for a further extension
of time. At some time after 4
December 2015 – he does not say when – he fell ill and
was not at work until 17 December
2015, an absence of less than two
weeks.
[25]
By then, the registrar of this court had informed the parties that
the appeal had lapsed, and that an application for condonation
and
for the re-instatement of the appeal would have to be filed with the
record. The appellants’ attorney instructed counsel
to draft
the application but was told that this could only be done when the
record was ready.
[26]
On 8 December 2015 – ironically, the day the registrar informed
the parties that the appeal had lapsed – Ms Smal
informed the
appellants’ attorney that she did not have the judgment of 1
June 2015 granting leave to appeal. On 17 December
2015, he requested
a transcription of the judgment. (It is 29 lines long.) On 14 January
2016, iAfrica provided him with a transcript
but this turned out to
be the transcript of 6 October 2014, not of 1 June 2015. The
judgment of 1 June 2015 was only transcribed
by 10 February 2016 but
it required the judge’s signature. That took some time but, on
16 May 2016, iAfrica informed the
appellants’ attorney that the
record was now ready.
[27]
On 25 May 2016, the appellants’ attorney informed counsel of
this and requested him to draft the application for condonation
and
re-instatement. Counsel said that he could only attend to this
towards the end of June 2016. Then, when counsel tried to arrange
a
consultation in late June 2016, the appellants’ attorney was
not available. Then, counsel was out of the country until
mid-July
2016. The result was that it was only on 15 July 2016 that a
candidate attorney consulted with counsel to provide facts
relevant
to the application. (Why a candidate attorney was not made available
in late June 2016 was not explained.)
[28]
A draft of the application was e-mailed to the appellants’
attorney on 18 July 2016. There was one issue on which counsel
required instructions. The appellants’ attorney, it would
appear, was not able to provide the information: he stated that
he
was ‘not available to consider the application’ because
of his involvement in the Commission into Higher Education
(the
Commission). This, he said, took up a great deal of his time. As a
result, he only attended to the application and responded
to
counsel’s query on 18 October 2016. (By then, the respondent’s
bills of costs had been taxed and paid.) It would
appear that the
application was drafted and settled by about 26 October 2016. It was
then decided, on the advice of senior counsel,
that a further
affidavit should be obtained from a person within the department to
explain what efforts the clients had made to
progress matters.
[29]
The appellants’ attorney’s affidavit was deposed to on 14
November 2016, that of Mr H J B Beukes, a senior legal
administration
officer in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, was
deposed to two days earlier and the notice
of motion was signed on 23
November 2016.
[30]
The record and the application were served on the respondent’s
Bloemfontein correspondents on 14 December 2016. An attempt
was made
to file them with the registrar but that did not happen until 17
March 2017.
[31]
In his affidavit, Mr Beukes outlined the steps that he had taken to
keep himself informed of the progress made – or lack
thereof –
in the preparation of the record and the drafting of the application.
He outlined his attempts to contact the appellants’
attorney
and the lack of proper responses from him. On three occasions, in
August, September and October 2016, he copied e-mails
he sent to the
appellants’ attorney to the head of the State Attorney’s
office in Pretoria.
[32]
In his replying affidavit, the appellants’ attorney sought to
explain the further delay in filing the record from November
2016
when the condonation papers were prepared to 17 March 2017 when the
record was finally filed.
[33]
He stated that on 14 December 2016, the registrar of this court
refused to accept the record because one page was illegible
and the
photographs in the record were not in colour. He forwarded this
information to Digital Audio Transcription Recordings which
iAfrica
had become. He received no response despite sending follow-up e-mails
during January 2017, the last of which was dated
31 January 2017. Why
the appellants’ attorney thought that Digital Audio would still
have the record and be in possession
of colour photographs is not
explained. One gets the impression that as soon as the registrar of
this court raised problems with
the record, the appellants’
attorney deflected the enquiry to Digital Audio to get the matter off
his desk for a while. He
took no steps himself to locate a legible
copy of the page or colour photographs.
[34]
Then, he said, he was unable to take the matter any further because
he attended a workshop of the Commission and was busy preparing
for
its next hearings. It was, as a result, only in mid-February 2017,
that he took any further action. This time he received a
response
from Ms Smal who informed him that his earlier e-mails, addressed
primarily to a Ms Keiller, had not been forwarded to
her.
[35]
Ms Smal no longer had a copy of the record but she asked him to
forward the illegible page to her, as well as any colour photographs
that he had or an affidavit stating that the appellant had no colour
photographs. The illegible page and the affidavit were only
forwarded
to Ms Smal on 3 March 2017. The appellants’ attorney was only
able to attend to these tasks then because he was
attending the
Commission.
[36]
The record was completed and re-bound on 9 March 2017. It was served
and filed on 17 March 2017.
Condonation:
the legal principles
[37]
The approach of this court to condonation in circumstances such as
the present is well-known. In
Dengetenge
Holdings (Pty) Ltd v Southern Sphere Mining and Development Company
Ltd & others
[2]
Ponnan JA
held that factors relevant to the discretion to grant or refuse
condonation include ‘the degree of non-compliance,
the
explanation therefor, the importance of the case, a respondent’s
interest in the finality of the judgment of the court
below, the
convenience of this court and the avoidance of unnecessary delay in
the administration of justice’.
[38]
In
Darries
v Sheriff, Magistrate’s Court, Wynberg & another
[3]
these
general considerations were fleshed out by Plewman JA when he stated:
‘
Condonation
of the non-observance of the Rules of this Court is not a mere
formality. In all cases, some acceptable explanation,
not only of,
for example, the delay in noting an appeal, but also, where this is
the case, any delay in seeking condonation, must
be given. An
appellant should whenever he realises that he has not complied with a
Rule of Court apply for condonation as soon
as possible. Nor should
it simply be assumed that, where non-compliance was due entirely to
the neglect of the appellant’s
attorney, condonation will be
granted. In applications of this sort the applicant’s prospects
of success are in general an
important though not decisive
consideration. When application is made for condonation it is
advisable that the petition should
set forth briefly and succinctly
such essential information as may enable the Court to assess the
appellant’s prospects of
success. But appellant’s
prospect of success is but one of the factors relevant to the
exercise of the Court’s discretion,
unless the cumulative
effect of the other relevant factors in the case is such as to render
the application for condonation obviously
unworthy of consideration.
Where non-observance of the Rules has been flagrant and gross an
application for condonation should
not be granted, whatever the
prospects of success might be.’
[39]
Reference was made in the passage I have cited above to it being an
erroneous assumption that if the cause of the delay in
complying with
the rules is the conduct of the appellant’s attorney,
condonation will be granted. That assumption was dispelled
in no
uncertain terms in
Saloojee
& another NNO v Minister of Community Development
.
[4]
In that
matter the notice of appeal, the record and the condonation
application were filed some eight months late. After considering
the
explanation given for the delay and concluding that it was not even
‘remotely satisfactory’
[5]
Steyn CJ
proceeded to hold:
[6]
‘
I
should point out, however, that it has not at any time been held that
condonation will not in any circumstances be withheld if
the blame
lies with the attorney. There is a limit beyond which a litigant
cannot escape the results of his attorney's lack of
diligence or the
insufficiency of the explanation tendered. To hold otherwise might
have a disastrous effect upon the observance
of the Rules of this
Court. Considerations
ad
misericordiam
should not be allowed to become an invitation to laxity. In fact this
Court has lately been burdened with an undue and increasing
number of
applications for condonation in which the failure to comply with the
Rules of this Court was due to neglect on the part
of the attorney.
The attorney, after all, is the representative whom the litigant has
chosen for himself, and there is little reason
why, in regard to
condonation of a failure to comply with a Rule of Court, the litigant
should be absolved from the normal consequences
of such a
relationship, no matter what the circumstances of the failure are.’
[40]
While the various factors that have been listed in the cases should
be weighed against each other, there are instances in which
condonation ought not to be granted even if, for instance, there are
reasonable prospects of success on the merits. This was alluded
to in
the passage that I cited from the
Darries
matter.
In
Tshivhase
Royal Council & another v Tshivhase & another; Tshivhase &
another v Tshivhase & another
[7]
Nestadt
JA said that this court ‘has often said that in cases of
flagrant breaches of the Rules, especially where there is
no
acceptable explanation therefor, the indulgence of condonation may be
refused whatever the merits of the appeal are’ and
that this
applies ‘even where the blame lies solely with the
attorney’.
[8]
[41]
In the present case we did not hear argument on the merits. Counsel
were asked to make their submissions on the assumption
that an appeal
would have reasonable prospects of success. The appellants’
counsel went further, submitting that his clients’
prospects of
success on the merits – the peremption point aside – were
strong. An assumption to this effect does not
change the outcome on
the particular facts of this case.
Is
the explanation adequate?
[42]
The explanation given by the appellants’ attorney is far from
adequate. This was conceded by Mr Redding who, together
with Mr
Wesley, appeared for the appellants.
[43]
The explanation, such as it was, leaves a substantial amount of time
spanning the entire period of the delay, unaccounted for.
It appears
from the absence of an explanation for most of this time that the
appellants’ attorney did not consider time to
be of the
essence, when it clearly was.
[44]
For instance, it took him from 17 December 2015 to 16 May 2016 to
obtain the signed judgment, 29 lines long, granting leave
to appeal.
Even if certain events were beyond his control, he appears to have
displayed no sense of urgency whatsoever. Secondly,
the record was
ready (or so he believed) by 16 May 2016 but it took until 23
November 2016 to complete the condonation papers.
Once again, he
allowed time to pass without any concern for the lengthening delay.
He could have furnished instructions to counsel
in writing if there
was difficulty in arranging a mutually convenient consultation.
Better still, he could have prepared a first
draft of the condonation
application himself, which counsel could have settled. After all,
drafting documents of this nature is
comfortably within the
competence of an attorney. In addition, he had knowledge of the
necessary facts and held the relevant correspondence
in his file.
Thirdly, even the condonation application was plagued by delay once
it had been drafted: the two affidavits were signed
on 12 and 14
November 2016, the notice of motion nine days after the latter date,
on 23 November 2016, and the application was
only served on the
respondent on 14 December 2016. In other words, more than a month
passed from when the papers were ready until
their service. And of
course, even that was plagued with problems as it was only on 17
March 2017 that the record and the application
were filed with the
registrar of this court.
[45]
When the registrar of this court refused to accept the record and
application for condonation on 14 December 2016, it took
over three
months to provide a legible copy of one page of the record and an
affidavit stating that the appellants had no colour
photographs. No
acceptable explanation was given for this delay. Indeed, no attempt
was made to supplement the condonation papers
to include this period
of time. It was only when the respondent’s attorney’s
Bloemfontein correspondent wished to file
the answering affidavit
that it came to light that the record had not been filed.
[46]
When it is considered that, on his own version, the appellants’
attorney believed that the record was more or less ready
for filing
on 4 December 2015, it beggars belief that it took more than 15
months before the record was filed. And all that needed
to be done in
that time was to obtain a short judgment, retype an illegible page
and file a short formal affidavit.
[47]
The closest that the appellants’ attorney came to an
explanation was that he was busy in the Commission and did not have
time to devote to this case. That is not an acceptable
explanation.
[9]
In
Kgobane
& another v Minister of Justice & another
[10]
Rumpff JA,
when confronted with a similar explanation, said that ‘[w]hen
an attorney tells this Court, in effect, that he
is too busy to study
the Rules of this Court and to supervise the prosecution of an
appeal, his explanation is quite unacceptable’.
[48]
The appellants’ attorney also proffered no explanation for his
extraordinary failure to communicate with the respondent’s
attorneys for over a year, despite the appeal having lapsed, despite
bills of costs being taxed and presented for payment and despite
the
further steps the respondent’s attorney took in respect of the
quantum aspect of the case.
[49]
Mr Beukes does not appear to have attempted, with any particular
vigour, to hold the appellants’ attorney to proper professional
standards of work. It is true that he sent him numerous
communications requesting progress reports but did little to ensure
that
the appellants were properly represented. As I have commented
above, he copied e-mails to the head of the State Attorney’s
office in Pretoria on three occasions in an effort to obtain
responses from the appellants’ attorney. One would have thought
that he would have arranged to meet the head of the office, at an
early stage, with a view to resolving the problem of the appellants’
attorney’s over-commitment and his consequent lack of attention
to this matter. I accept that the appellants had no choice
but to be
represented by the State Attorney. That does not mean that they had
to accept shoddy service. They were entitled to be
represented in a
professional and responsible manner and ought to have demanded that
the appeal be prosecuted in accordance with
those standards. The head
of the State Attorney’s office was aware of the problem but
appears to have done very little, if
anything, to address it. The
attempts of Mr Beukes, such as they were, to goad the appellants’
attorney into action, and
the latter’s failure to respond
positively, aggravate the egregiousness of his conduct. This is one
of those unfortunate
cases in which the attorney’s conduct is
so far beyond the pale that the clients will have to suffer the
consequences.
[50]
In my view, this is a particularly gross case: the delay was extreme
and the explanation unacceptable. Each stage of the delay
increased
the need for urgent and decisive action at the next stage yet, from
beginning to end, the appellants’ attorney’s
endeavours
were feckless and desultory. In these circumstances, the appellants’
prospects of success, even if they were assumed
to be strong, could
not salvage the appellants’ position. The cumulative effect of
the mismanagement of the appeal, the inadequacy
of the explanation
and the respondent’s interest – and the public interest –
in the finality of the litigation
mean that the application for
condonation and re-instatement of the appeal cannot succeed. If it
had been necessary to consider
the prospects of success, the
appellants face a formidable hurdle, unrelated to the merits of their
defence to the underlying action,
in the form of the argument that by
inter alia allowing the appeal to lapse and months later paying the
respondent’s costs
without reservation, the appellants have
perempted their appeal.
Conclusion
[51]
For the reasons stated above, we made an order at the hearing of the
appeal that the application for condonation and for the
re-instatement of the appeal is dismissed with costs.
________________________
C
Plasket
Acting
Judge of Appeal
APPEARANCES:
For
the Appellants:
A Redding SC with MA Wesley
Instructed
by:
Office of the State Attorney, Pretoria
Office of the State
Attorney Bloemfontein
For
the Respondent:
R Stockwell SC
Instructed
by:
Harvey Nossel & Turnbull Attorneys, Johannesburg
Lovius Block
Attorneys, Bloemfontein
[1]
The Big
Five comprise the lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo.
They were regarded by hunters as the five most difficult
animals to
hunt, and hence the most prized. They are now regarded just as
highly from the point of view of game-viewing enthusiasts
and hence
are of considerable value in the tourism industry.
[2]
Dengetenge
Holdings (Pty) Ltd v Southern Sphere Mining and Development Company
Ltd & others
[2013]
ZASCA 5
;
[2013] 2 All SA 251
(SCA) para 11.
[3]
Darries
v Sheriff, Magistrate’s Court, Wynberg & another
1998 (3) SA
34
(SCA) at 40H-41E. (References omitted.)
[4]
Saloojee
& another NNO v Minister of Community Development
1965 (2) SA
135 (A).
[5]
At 140H.
[6]
At 141B-E.
[7]
Tshivhase
Royal Council & another v Tshivhase & another; Tshivhase &
another v Tshivhase & another
[1992] ZASCA 185
;
1992 (4) SA
852
(A) at 859E-F.
[8]
See by way
of example,
P
E Bosman Transport Works Committee & others v Piet Bosman
Transport (Pty) Ltd
1980 (4) SA 794
(A) at 799D-E. See too
Blumenthal
& another v Thomson NO & another
[1993] ZASCA 190
;
1994 (2) SA 118
(A) at 121I-122B.
[9]
Saloojee’s
case
(fn 4) at 140D-E.
[10]
Kgobane
& another v Minister of Justice & another
1969 (3) SA
365
(A) at 369B.