Mungo Soggot reports on a bizarre supreme court case against the dog squad which has cost the taxpayer about R60 000
THE police dog squad has spent about R60 000 of taxpayers’ money challenging allegations that it stole a design for a dog kennel despite a supreme court judgment against it last year which found prima facie evidence of copying.
After fighting the case for almost a year, the police finally capitulated on Tuesday and agreed to pay all costs — three days before the trial was due to be heard.
The end to this bizarre saga comes just months after Safety and Security Secretary Azhar Cachalia criticised the police for wasting thousands of rand by fighting certain human rights abuse cases to the bitter end instead of admitting liability from the start.
Frikkie von Kraayenburg, a breeder and trainer of German shepherds, alleged in court papers last year that the police had copied the design of his special dog kennel when he showed it to them at their Pretoria headquarters in March 1994.
Van Kraayenburg wanted to interdict the police from pushing ahead with a tender for 800 kennels based on a design similar to his. He succeeded in securing a temporary order from Judge K van Dijkhorst of the Pretoria Supreme Court last September, which barred the police from proceeding with the tender and recommended a trial. The police had to pay both sides’ costs for the application.
Van Kraayenburg had approached the police with his design after the police tendered for a run-of-the- mill pitched-roof kennel. He submitted a tender with his own design, sticking to state tender rules which allow companies to submit tenders with “deviations” from the proposed design. The police then cancelled the original tender and tendered for a box similar to the one Van Kraayenburg had showed them.
Major Potgieter of the dog squad argued that the police had thought up the different design themselves after receiving inspiration from a German magazine, the input of several South African Police Service (SAPS) members and three experts. Potgieter said he had made rough drawings of the idea which were no longer in existence.
Judge van Dijkhorst said in his judgment that Potgieter was unable to say when he had made his rough drawings, but confirmed that the final drawing had been made on June 2 1994 and a “specification” had been sent to the SAPS’s consultancy division on April 19. The judge pointed out that both these dates fell after Van Kraayenburg had put in a tender with his special design, and therefore provided “prima facie evidence of copying”.
The judge said the dog squad, which was fighting the case in the name of Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi, had objected that an interdict would delay its attempts to get 800 kennels which were urgently needed before the rainy season began.
The judge dismissed this objection, saying: “I do not think one can conclude that there are at the moment 800 dogs without any sleeping boxes. I think one must conclude that there are existing sleeping boxes which are outdated and may in some instances be in a dilapidated state.”
Van Kraayenburg says his legal bill for the case has topped R30 000, which means the taxpayer’s bill is similar. In the police’s settlement, the dog squad agreed not to pursue the tender with the disputed design, but it did not admit stealing the design.
Van Kraayenburg also contacted the public protector with his gripes and listed three instances in which he claims the police and other departments have hijacked his designs for kennels and dog suits which protect handlers from bites.
According to his submission to the public protector — who decided to hold fire on an investigation pending the outcome of the trial — the dog squad agreed to buy special portable dog kennels exclusively from him. The kennels were patented in his name.
After the dog squad had taken 104 of these kennels from him, the Tender Board refused to let the police buy more directly without tendering. So the police tendered for a box based on his specifications. Van Kraayenburg considered approaching the winner of the tender for breach of patent, but said he could not afford the R50 000 deposit asked by his lawyers.