LSB to remain onlookers in judges� case
Mpho Mokwape | Friday February 3, 2017 16:22
The LSB, who lost both their High Court application and their appeal at the higher court, had desired to be admitted as amicus curie (friend of the court) to help the court with points of law.
When dismissing the appeal with costs yesterday, Justice David Brand of the Court of Appeal (CoA) said the LSB had failed to establish that the points they intended to raise were sufficiently different from those relied upon.
Brand said he agreed with the court a quo that the LSB’s application was bound to fail since they did not raise any points that qualified as new.
“Its real difficulty did not lie in its inability to identify the points it intended to raise to rely on. Its difficulty was that it failed to establish that the points it intended to raise were sufficiently different and qualified as new,” he said.
Brand explained that the bold statement by the LSB that it will be bringing an international law dimension to the case stood entirely unmotivated.
He argued that without any properly motivated averments to the contrary, he found no reason to think that the applicants, being the suspended Judges, could not do those themselves.
“They are highly qualified and experienced lawyers themselves, together with their legal representative will not be able to bring all relevant propositions of law, including international law to the attention of court,” he said.
Brand maintained that an analysis of the LSB’s papers leads one to nowhere with their founding affidavit amounting to nothing more than a synopsis of those raised by the applicants in their papers in the main application.
In addition, he said the aspirant amicus was obliged and must be entitled to demonstrate in its founding papers why the points are novel by distinguishing them from those to be raised by the applicants.
LSB, who brought an application for joinder at the High Court last year in the middle of the suspended Judges’ case with the President and others ,were dismissed on two bases of the requirements to succeed by the court a quo. It had a cognisable interest in the matter and that it intends to bring matters of law or facts to attention of court of which the court may otherwise remain unaware.
In the dismissal, they were accused of seeking to be joined in order to support the suspended Judges’ case in every respect.