Mail & Guardian reports that the government has thrown R5.5-million — and counting — into a black hole of litigation for former police commissioner Riah Phiyega to clear her name in relation to the Marikana massacre.
This is despite a high court finding that her application was threadbare and not in the public interest. It is not yet known whether the government will be carrying the additional burdens of the costs order (for two counsels) awarded against Phiyega by the Pretoria High Court in its judgment handed down on 30 May this year. Phiyega has already filed a notice to appeal the high court judgment and, according to lawyers, the next round of litigation will push the cost to taxpayers to above the R10-million mark. This amount will increase further if the matter goes all the way to the Constitutional Court. Phiyega was just two months into her job as national commissioner when police shot dead 34 striking miners at platinum-mining company Lonmin’s Marikana operation in the North West on 16 August 2012. The Farlam commission’s report was scathing about the role Phiyega played. It found that the police leadership “on the highest level” had sought to deceive the commission about how the police decision to “go tactical” (use live ammunition and force) on 16 August 2012 was reached, and to conceal that the plan did not include input from public order policing members. The latter is a legal obligation in public order situations. A lawyer working for the state described Phiyega’s application as “zombie litigation”, with little chance of success. Last week Phiyega said she was prepared “to fight this all the way”, because she had been made a “scapegoat” for what had happened at Marikana in 2012.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Niren Tolsi at Mail & Guardian (paywall access only)
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