The Pretoria High Court refused on Tuesday to intervene in the process preceding the construction of a nuclear reactor at Koeberg near Cape Town.
Eskom has applied to the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism for permission to construct a demonstration module pebble bed modular reactor there.
The Cape Town branch of the environmental organisation Earthlife Africa brought an urgent application to the court for an order obliging the department’s director general to allow it an opportunity to make more representations before he made his decision.
The body also wanted access to all documents on which the director general would base his decision.
Judge George Webster ruled that the application was not urgent, and he therefore struck it from the roll.
He said Earthlife Africa had known for more than six months that the process had reached the stage where a decision would be taken.
”The applicant did not do anything about the matter until … March when instructions were given to counsel to take the necessary legal steps to enforce the applicant’s rights.
”Even then nothing was done until the applicant heard that a decision would be made at the end of May 2003.”
Earthlife Africa did not provide any cogent or convincing reason why it did not take the necessary steps earlier, Webster found.
He did not make any cost order, which effectively means that each party to the case will have to pay its own costs.
”The applicant is an organisation keenly advocating the safety of humanity on the planet,” the judge said.
Earthlife Africa did not have anything to gain from the litigation, but was attempting to test various laws passed in recent years to affirm the objectives enshrined in the Constitution, he said.
”I do not believe it is in the interests of justice to burden the applicant with the costs.” – Sapa