The Cape High Court ruled on Thursday afternoon that it would accept the late filing of an affidavit by Matthias Rath in opposition to an application by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
The affidavit, which stretches with annexures to 2 709 pages in nine lever-arch files, was lodged about 13 months after deadline.
Rath’s advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza earlier told the court the delay was because Rath had been awaiting the outcome of a German court case.
In his ruling, Judge Burton Fourie said despite the fact that the reason given for the delay ”does not bear scrutiny”, he ”reluctantly” concluded that he must accept the affidavit.
Fourie said in perusing the application he had found no basis for believing that the defence it provided was unfounded and therefore the respondent would suffer ”irreparable harm” if the affidavit was not accepted.
The TAC and the South African Medical Association are asking the court for an interdict barring Rath from selling or distributing unregistered medicines, running illegal clinical trials and publishing misleading advertisements.
In addition, the two bodies want the court to order the Department of Health — also cited as a respondent — to take ”reasonable measures” to police Rath’s activities.
Their application was lodged in November 2005 and was supposed to be heard on Thursday.
Instead, the morning was taken up with argument on an application by Rath for condonation of the fact that his answering papers were filed only last month, five months after the case was set down for hearing.
Fourie ordered that Rath pay the costs of the TAC for the condonation application as well as the costs incurred by the postponement now of the main application.
He said a date for the main application will be decided by the registrar with the instruction that preference be given to the matter. — Sapa