Acting judge Mike Hellens this week recused himself from the civil case between members of the Vanderbijlpark community and steel giant Iscor following an application by David Soggot, legal counsel for 16 applicants from Steel Valley.
The case, which revolves around Iscor’s alleged involvement in pollution at Vanderbijlpark and surrounding areas, was turned on its head when Soggot accused the court of bias.
Soggot said the fact that the judge said he had ”a general view of the matter” meant that he was not objective and could be biased.
An affidavit presented to the court on behalf of the applicants said they had formed a firm impression, on the basis of everything that they had heard in court, that the judge had formed a general view of the case.
On Monday the 16 Steel Valley residents, who want the court to force Iscor to stop polluting their land and environment and to take the necessary measures to begin restoring the area, wanted the judge to subpoena Cornelius Hattingh, an Iscor employee who, for years, had compiled reports on borehole water samples.
Hellens ruled against issuing the subpoena, saying that he found it ”undesirable” to give reasons for his ruling at this time.
Soggot raised the point again on Wednesday, saying that Hattingh’s report was crucial to the case as it provided expert knowledge and inside information.
Soggot said that the report had been compiled by Hattingh after he had been sampling the borehole water for years, which clearly showed that the information gathered was relevant.
He said that the report involved hundreds of readings, 40 pages of information and photographs of the allegedly polluted site.
Iscor’s legal representative, Piet Meyer, argued that the document was compiled only for Hattingh’s senior management and that it had many faults.
The applicants’ case is that Iscor did nothing to warn the people of Steel Valley that the water was not fit for consumption. This meant they continued to drink the water and to use it for irrigation, with the result that the soil is now no longer suitable for growing crops.
Soggot said that the environment had suffered 40 years of contamination. Iscor knew this but had done nothing about it.
The Vanderbijlpark steel company was built in 1958 and had been aware of its polluting activities since 1961, said Soggot.