President Jacob Zuma. Picture: Delwyn Verasamy/Mail & Guardian
Should civil servants who fight long, drawn-out court cases against private or civil society litigants be personally and financially penalised if their arguments are ultimately deemed to be frivolous, or are seen by the judges as a way of filibustering the case until the private or civil society litigant gives up?
Organisations such as the Socio-Economic Rights Institute and Lawyers for Human Rights would probably say yes. Many people who have brought individual cases against state entities or officials, or have just tried to make them hold to the Constitution, would also say yes.
The ongoing matters to do with SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng and the plethora of cases surrounding President Jacob Zuma are just the most famous of them. There are many others that take forever to get to court, and then another forever to get through the courts, because the state has the resources to hire top lawyers to quibble at every point — basically, to turn the case into a Battle of Stalingrad. Not every litigant against the state is able or willing to fight such a long, drawn-out battle.
In this edition, Bernard Ngoepe, formerly the Gauteng judge president and now the tax ombud, suggests penalising overlitigious civil servants. That the Helen Suzman Foundation and the South African Communist Party agree on this probably means it’s an idea whose time has come.