The defence in the fraud trial of former national cricketer Garth le Roux and his accountant won an important victory on Monday with a court ruling that will limit the type of evidence the state’s main witness can give.
Wynberg Regional Court magistrate Jackie Redelinghuys ruled that the state could not lead opinion evidence on matters of interpretation of law.
The defence teams, led by advocate Wim Trengove for Le Roux and Andre la Grange for accountant Gideon van Heerden, raised objections last week soon after South African Revenue Service (Sars) investigator Lorenzo van Vuuren took the stand.
The dispute over his testimony has dominated the trial so far.
Redelinghuys said in Monday’s ruling that the defence had objected to the state leading opinion evidence on ”matters of law”, including the basis on which Sars sought to levy taxes.
Prosecutor Bronwen Hendry had, however, argued that this was permissible under an exception that allowed expert evidence where words in law such as ”due and payable” had a special or technical meaning.
Making his ruling, Redelinghuys said he did foresee that the issue would be revisited during the trial when issues came up relating to the interpretation of specific terms in the law or the application of the law to specific facts.
Redelinghuys said last week, after hearing argument on the defence objection, that the rest of the proceedings in the trial would depend ”to a very great extent” on his decision.
Trengove had argued that judging from a pre-trial written statement by Van Vuuren, a ”large chunk” of his evidence was going to be inadmissible because it was ”pure law”.
Van Vuuren is still in the witness box and the case continues. — Sapa