The Board is currently seeking to overturn a judgment favouring nine former employees involved in a clash over land allocation.
The former employees, some reinstated and others with pending cases, accused the Land Board of failing to subdivide and allocate their ploughing fields despite the approval of their 2019 application. The Land Board lost the case but is now pursuing a rescission of the judgment by Justice Gaolapelwe Ketlogetswe after it had failed to file court documents including an answering affidavit when the matter was first brought against it. Land Board argues through its attorney, Phenyo Sekape, that the relief sought against it is potentially illegal.
"The board's attitude in the matter is not of a litigant only seeking to deny the claimants the benefit of the relief they seek but that the board has a bona fide defence to the claim in the main application," he said. Sekape contends that the former employees' demands violate the Tribal Land Act and should be rescinded.
He submitted that, owing to the preliminary finding of irregularities in the issuance of the said resolutions, all transfers and or potential transfers have been suspended while awaiting a land audit carried out by the Land Board and its supervisory ministry. The attorney explained the Land Board's defence also involves a consideration of the mandate of Subordinate Land Boards in tribal land matters. "Specifically, whether it is empowered to pass the resolutions that the claimants seek to enforce before the court. We submit that the Land Board has made out a case entitling it to the rescission that has been sought," he said. Regarding the Land Board's non-appearance in court on June 23, 2021, Sekape explained it was not negligent but a result of an agreement to dispense with oral submissions.
He clarified the administrative lapse in filing heads of argument, attributing it to a genuine oversight. In response to the Land Board's appeal, the nine claimants' attorney, Uyapo Ndadi, argued that the Land Board failed to demonstrate the illegality of the resolutions and criticised its conduct, including failure to file timely notices and heads of argument at the High Court.
"More interestingly, the Kweneng Land Board was copied in all the resolutions as they bear their stamp. If any illegality existed, it ought to have been picked then," he said. Ndadi emphasised that the court looked at the conduct of the Land Board and found it to be calling for a dismissal of the rescission application.
"In sum, the conduct is failure to file a notice of opposition on time, failure to file heads of argument and failure to appear at court for argument. If the appeal is to succeed, it would present a crisis to the courts as it would mean that court rules and orders do not mean much and would delay matters," he argued. Ndadi therefore submitted that the appeal stands to be dismissed with costs at a punitive scale as the Land Board's attorney misrepresented the truth under oath by saying he became aware of the June 2021 court order only in mid-July 2021, when in fact he became aware of it the day it was pronounced.
Furthermore, on the appeal, Ndadi said they had to prepare their heads of argument without the benefit of the Land Board's heads as they were not filed at the time of drafting showing that it is, yet again, a repetition of the conduct of the Land Board. "Clearly the conduct of the Land Board throughout this case has been nothing short of laxity.
This court is therefore urged to reject the reasons for they lack reasonability and respect for the court. If the court is to accept the reason, it would mean litigants can simply write letters to the Court of Appeal and any other court and say we propose not to appear for argument. We will just rely on our Heads of Argument. That, it is submitted, is contemptuous to the court," he said. Meanwhile, in the main application that the Land Board lost, the nine claimants accuse the board of failing to subdivide and allocate their ploughing fields. The claimants insist the appeal should be dismissed with punitive costs. In the main application, the claimants accuse the Board of neglecting to subdivide and allocate their ploughing fields, citing areas in Nkoyaphiri Mogoditshane, Gabane, Rakola, Diphiring, and Gaphatshwa lands.
