GroundUp reports that the Supreme Court of Appeal has lambasted a KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) judge for taking four years to deliver a judgment involving a civil claim for damages emanating from a strike.  

In its ruling, the court said this was “an unconscionable dereliction of duty”.  The matter before the SCA was an appeal by the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) against a ruling by Judge Anton Van Zyl in the Pietermaritzburg High Court in favour of Dunlop Mixing and Technical Services.  The company had claimed for “riot” damages, through the Gatherings Act, arising from a protected strike which had turned violent.  The SCA overturned his ruling, saying the act did not apply because the industrial action had been a picket “in furtherance of a protected strike” authorised under the Labour Relations Act, which gave immunity from civil claims.  Towards the end of the judgment, the court noted the four-year delay and said:  “The judgment (of Van Zyl) gives no explanation for this extraordinary delay.  We were informed by counsel that whereas the underlying labour dispute had long since been resolved, the consequences, in the form of civil litigation (for damages), are self-evidently not.  The prejudice caused by a delay of four years is manifest.  How it can take the judge four years to decide this issue and to deliver his judgment defies understanding.”  The judges said if there was a reasonable explanation or excuse, Van Zyl should have set it out in his judgment.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tania Broughton at TimesLIVE

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