Case Law[2025] ZAGPPHC 333South Africa
K20253553/34 v Sibiya N.O and Others (056154/2024) [2025] ZAGPPHC 333 (28 March 2025)
Headnotes
in Pretoria according to the rules of AFSA in accordance with the law in this jurisdiction, and judgment upon the award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any Court having jurisdiction thereof…
Judgment
begin wrapper
begin container
begin header
begin slogan-floater
end slogan-floater
- About SAFLII
About SAFLII
- Databases
Databases
- Search
Search
- Terms of Use
Terms of Use
- RSS Feeds
RSS Feeds
end header
begin main
begin center
# South Africa: North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria
South Africa: North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria
You are here:
SAFLII
>>
Databases
>>
South Africa: North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria
>>
2025
>>
[2025] ZAGPPHC 333
|
Noteup
|
LawCite
sino index
## K20253553/34 v Sibiya N.O and Others (056154/2024) [2025] ZAGPPHC 333 (28 March 2025)
K20253553/34 v Sibiya N.O and Others (056154/2024) [2025] ZAGPPHC 333 (28 March 2025)
Download original files
PDF format
RTF format
make_database: source=/home/saflii//raw/ZAGPPHC/Data/2025_333.html
sino date 28 March 2025
REPUBLIC
OF SOUTH AFRICA
IN
THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
GAUTENG
DIVISION, PRETORIA
Case
Number: 056154/2024
(1)
REPORTABLE: NO
(2)
OF INTEREST TO OTHER JUDGES: NO
(3)
REVISED: NO
In
the matter between:
K20153553/34
Applicant
and
LOUISIA
SIBIYA N.O.
First Respondent
ELIZABETH
MARGARATE EDWARDS N.O.
Second Respondent
MPOYANA
LAZARUS LEDWABA
Third Respondent
(In
their capacities as the duly appointed joint liquidators of Artio
Investments (Pty) Ltd)
ARTIO
INVESTMENTS (PTY) LTD
Fourth Respondent
JUDGMENT
Motha J
Introduction
[1]
Pursuant to an arbitration award dated 19
August 2023, the applicant asserts that his right to an appeal has
not lapsed and brings
an application for a declaratory order in terms
of
s21(1)(c)
of the
Superior Courts Act 10 of 2013
. The respondents
contend that the applicant’s right to appeal has lapsed.
The parties
[2]
The applicant is K 201-535-3134 (South
Africa) (Pty) Limited, a private company which is registered in
accordance with the company
laws of the Republic of South Africa.
[3]
The first respondent is Louisa Sibiya N.O,
an adult female joint liquidator of the fourth respondent and
practicing as such at Tshwane
Trust Company (Pty) Ltd.
[4]
The second respondent is Elizabeth Margaret
Edwards N.O, an adult female joint liquidator of the fourth
respondent and practicing
as such at Xirimele Administrators (Pty)
Ltd t/a Xirimele Trustees Pretoria.
[5]
The third respondent is Mpoyana Lazarus
Ledwaba N.O, an adult male joint liquidator of the fourth respondent
and practicing as such
at Lefika Corporate Recoveries (Pty) Ltd.
[6]
The fourth respondent is Artio Investments
(Pty) Ltd, a private company with limited liability incorporated in
accordance with the
company laws of the Republic of South Africa.
Facts in brief
[7]
On 16 February 2017, the applicant and the
fourth respondent concluded a written agreement in terms of which the
applicant purchased
the business of the fourth respondent for a
purchase price of R36 000 786.00 (inclusive of Vat).
[8]
The salient clauses of the parties’
agreement are:
“
3.2
the purchase is payable by the purchaser as follows: -
20% of the full purchase
price as a deposit, to be paid into the transferring attorneys trust
account, and at the signature date,
invested in a special interest
bearing account for the benefit of the purchaser in terms of Section
78 (2A) of the Attorneys Act…
3.2.3
The balance of the purchase price shall be
paid in cash or secured by means of a guarantee acceptable to the
seller, within 45 (forty-five)
business days from demand by the
seller…
7.
Disputes:
Any dispute, controversy
or claim arising out of or relating to the contract or the breach
thereof shall be settled by arbitration
appointed by AFSA, Pretoria,
to be held in Pretoria according to the rules of AFSA in accordance
with the law in this jurisdiction,
and judgment upon the award
rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any Court having
jurisdiction thereof…
11.3 In the event of
cancellation of this agreement, the purchaser shall forfeit all
monies paid, including commission paid in terms
of this agreement to
the seller as liquidated damages…
15.
AMENDMENTS AND
ADDITIONS:
The terms and conditions
contained in this agreement constitute the sole agreement between the
parties relating to the business
and no variation or amendment there
too shall be binding unless reduced to writing and signed by the
parties hereto
16.
WAIVER AND
CONCESSION:
16. 1 any waiver or
concession made or allowed by the seller shall not constitute a
waiver of his rights in terms of this agreement
and the seller shall
at all times be entitled to enforce strict compliance hereof…”
Issues
[9]
Following the conclusion of the
above-mentioned agreement, the applicant paid a deposit of R7 200
157.10. Subsequently, the applicant
failed to settle the balance of
the purchase price. On 15 April 2021, Madibeng Property Investment
offered the sum of R23 000 000.00
(excluding Vat) to the
fourth respondent for the purchase of the property in question.
[10]
On 6 May 2021, the fourth respondent
addressed correspondence to the applicant informing it about the
offer. Essentially, the correspondence
was meant to illicit a
response from the applicant regarding its contractual obligation,
before the property was sold to a third
party. Upon the cancellation
of the sale agreement, the respondent accepted the offer by Madibeng
Property Investment.
[11]
After receiving the third party’s
offer, the respondent invoked the forfeiture clause and informed the
applicant of the decision
to retain the deposit that the applicant
had paid as liquidated damages, for the applicant’s alleged
breach of the sale agreement.
[12]
In September 2022, the applicant instituted
the arbitration proceedings, wherein it claimed payment of
R7 200 157.10.
On 2 November 2022, the parties attended a
pre-arbitration virtual meeting. The meeting was attended by the
arbitrator, Adv DH
Hinrichsen, the applicant, represented by ADV D
Ramdhani SC with attorney B Malani, and the Respondent, represented
by ADV A Roussuw
SC with J Reyneke.
[13]
Of particular importance from this meeting
were the following: first, at 2.3 of the minutes a question was
posed: “The AFSA
rules will apply to the conduct of this
arbitration?” The answer was “Yes.” Second, at 4.4.
“The parties
undertake
to comply with
the award handed down by the arbitrator within 15 days after the
award has been published subject to the either party
having the right
of appeal. Yes.”
[14]
On 3 November 2022, the minutes were signed
by the Arbitrator, Adv DH Hinrichsen, a member of the Pretoria bar
and not by the parties’
legal representatives.
The
arbitration proceedings were conducted under the auspices of AFSA
under reference AFSA PTA 02092022. Importantly, during the
arbitration the parties agreed to remove the arbitration from the
AFSA and administered the arbitration privately to reduce costs.
[15]
On 19 August 2023, the arbitrator handed
down the arbitration award. The applicant did not waste time filing
the notice of appeal,
on 29 August 2023. Before this court, the
dispute was crystallized and circumscribed to whether the applicant’s
right to
appeal had lapsed. The respondent submitted that the parties
had agreed that the appeal would be heard in terms of Article 22 of
AFSA. The applicant contended that the parties agreed to deal with
the appeal away from the rules of AFSA, as demonstrated by their
conduct. At this juncture, it is apt to pause and mention
Article 22:
“
22.1
Where the parties have, whether in terms of the arbitration agreement
or otherwise, in writing agreed that an interim award
or the final
award of an arbitrators shall be subject to a right of appeal the
following rules shall, save to the extent otherwise
agreed by them in
writing, apply.
22.2 A notice of appeal
shall be delivered by the appellant, within 7 calendar days of
publication of the award, failing which the
interim award or final
award shall not be appealable.”
[16]
It is common cause that the applicant did
not comply with the letter of Article 22 and therein lies the heart
of this dispute. According
to the respondent the failure to follow
Article 22,
ipso facto,
meant the appeal had lapsed. As already stated, the applicant
submitted that the conduct of the parties clearly demonstrated that
the parties did not want to follow Article 22 of the rules of AFSA,
and instead they wanted to carve out their own rules.
The law
[17]
In the
matter of
Lufuno
Mphaphuli & Associates (Pty) Ltd v Andrews and Another
[1]
,
O’Regan
ADCJ:
held:
“
In
approaching these questions, it is important to start with an
understanding of the nature of private arbitration. Private
arbitration
is a process built on consent in that parties agree that
their disputes will be settled by an arbitrator. It was aptly
described
by Smalberger ADP in
Total
Support Management (Pty) Ltd and Another v Diversified Health Systems
(SA)(Pty) Ltd and Another
as
follows:
“
The
hallmark of arbitration is that it is an adjudication, flowing from
the consent of the parties to the arbitration agreement,
who define
the powers of adjudication, and are equally free to modify or
withdraw that power at any time by way of further agreement.”
[2]
[18]
Discussing the advantages of arbitration,
O’Regan ADCJ continued:
“
Some
of the advantages of arbitration lie in its flexibility (as parties
can determine the process to be followed by an arbitrator
including
the manner in which evidence will be received, the exchange of
pleadings and the like), its cost-effectiveness, its privacy
and its
speed (particularly as often no appeal lies from an arbitrator’s
award, or lies only in an accelerated form to an
appellate arbitral
body).”
[3]
[19]
With
that backdrop in mind, this court should, of necessity, determine
what the parties consented to when signing the sale agreement.
Particularly, on the issues of dispute resolution, whether they
subsequently modified or withdrew clause 7. Dealing with the
interpretation
of contracts, the constitutional court in
University
of Johannesburg v Auckland Park Theological Seminary and Another
[4]
held:
“
The
approach in
Endumeni
“updated”
the previous position, which was that context could be resorted to if
there was ambiguity or lack of
clarity in the text. The Supreme Court
of Appeal has explicitly pointed out in cases subsequent
to
Endumeni
that
context and purpose must be taken into account as a matter of course,
whether or not the words used in the contract are
ambiguous. A
court interpreting a contract has to, from the onset, consider the
contract’s factual matrix, its purpose,
the circumstances
leading up to its conclusion, and the knowledge at the time of those
who negotiated and produced the contract.
[67] This means that
parties will invariably have to adduce evidence to establish the
context and purpose of the relevant contractual
provisions.
That evidence could include the pre-contractual exchanges between the
parties leading up to the conclusion of
the contract and evidence of
the context in which a contract was concluded. As the Supreme
Court of Appeal held in
Novartis
:
“
This
court has consistently held, for many decades, that the
interpretative process is one of ascertaining the intention of the
parties – what they meant to achieve. And in doing that,
the court must consider all the circumstances surrounding
the
contract to determine what their intention was in concluding it. . .
. A court must examine all the facts – the context
– in
order to determine what the parties intended. And it must do
that whether or not the words of the contract are
ambiguous or lack
clarity. Words without context mean nothing.”
Discussion
Counsel for the
respondents’ submissions
[20]
Counsel for the respondent pointed out that
between the tramlines of the notice to appeal reads: “APPELLANT’S/
CLAIMANT’S
NOTICE OF APPEAL IN TERMS OF ARTICLE 22 OF THE AFSA
COMMERCIAL RULES”. According to counsel for the respondent,
this was
one of the indications that the applicant wanted to be bound
by the rules of AFSA. The fact that the applicant failed to comply
with Article 22 meant that the final award had not been appealed, he
submitted. The appeal was neither served on the Registrar
of AFSA nor
was the original filed with the Registrar of AFSA.
[21]
He argued that the applicant failed to
deliver the notice of appeal within 7 calendar days of the
publication of the award and under
AFSA’s Rules delivery is
defined as:
“
to
deliver or send copies to all parties as provided for in these Rules,
and to file the original to the Registrar; and “delivery”
has a corresponding meaning; but “physically deliver”
shall mean physically deliver to the party indicated by context.”
[5]
[22]
From the commencement of the proceedings,
the parties agreed that neither the Uniform Rules of the High Court
nor the Rules of the
SCA applied. If AFSA rules do not apply, the
parties did not have any other rules to turn to, his submission went.
[23]
When
read with clause 7 of the parties’ agreement, he further
submitted that in totality the parties agreed that AFSA Rules
would
apply. The reality is that the parties were legally represented and
if they wanted to alter the terms of their contract,
they would have
done so, his submission continued. Counsel for the respondent
cautioned this court against writing a contract for
the parties. To
this end, he referred to the matter of
Capitec
Bank Holdings Limited and Another v Coral Lagoon Investments 194
(Pty) Ltd and Others
,
[6]
where the court said:
“
Our
analysis must commence with the provisions of the subscription
agreement that have relevance for deciding whether Capitec Holdings’
consent was indeed required. The much-cited passages from
Natal
Joint Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality (
Endumeni)
offer
guidance as to how to approach the interpretation of the words used
in a document. It is the language used, understood in
the context in
which it is used, and having regard to the purpose of the provision
that constitutes the unitary exercise of interpretation.
I would only
add that the triad of text, context and purpose should not be used in
a mechanical fashion. It is the relationship
between the words used,
the concepts expressed by those words and the place of the contested
provision within the scheme of the
agreement (or instrument) as a
whole that constitutes the enterprise by recourse to which a coherent
and salient interpretation
is determined. As
Endumeni
emphasised,
citing well-known cases, ‘[t]he inevitable point of departure
is the language of the provision itself’…
Endumeni is
not a charter for judicial constructs premised upon what a contract
should be taken to mean from a vantage point
that is not located in
the text of what the parties in fact agreed. Nor
does
Endumeni
licence
judicial interpretation that imports meanings into a contract so as
to make it a better contract, or one that is ethically
preferable.”
[7]
Counsel for the
applicant’s submissions
[24]
Counsel for the applicant submitted that
the parties wanted different rules to apply on appeal, hence,
following the applicant’s
delivery of its notice of appeal, on
28 September 2023 at 15h15, a meeting was held via a tele-conference
between the legal representatives
of the parties, namely: Ms.
Reyneke and Mr Malani. It is common cause that the respondent’s
attorney, Ms Reyneke, distributed
the proposed draft minutes of the
meeting, on 29 September 2023. The two sticking points were how many
retired judges should be
part of the appeal panel- the applicant
wanted three whilst the respondent wanted two- and the issue of
R500 000-00 security.
[25]
Since the parties agreed, during the
hearing, to transition the arbitration from AFSA to the one
administer by themselves, he submitted
that the respondents were
being opportunistic in amending their heads of argument and the case
at the eleventh hour to suite the
argument that the parties wanted to
be bound by the AFSA rules. He submitted that the parties’
behaviour pre and post arbitration
award pointed to the fact that
they did not want to be bound by the AFSA rules.
[26]
Relying
on the matter of
Eskom
Holdings SOC Ltd v Kuyasa Mining (Pty) Ltd and Others,
[8]
and
referring to paragraphs 37 and 39 of the judgment, he submitted that
Kuyasa
is binding on this court. At paragraph 37, the court in
Kuyasa
said:
“
What
is clear to me from the aforesaid is that in terms of the AFSA Rules
themselves, it is intended that these Rules apply as they
stand, in
all respects, only where AFSA actually administers the arbitration
proceedings. My view in this regard is fortified by
further
provisions in the AFSA Rules themselves. Importantly, and as to how
arbitration proceedings are to be initiated, article
4.1 prescribes
that a party wishing to resort to arbitration ‘
under
the aegis of and according to the Rules of the Foundation
’,
shall submit a written ‘
Request
for Arbitration
’ to the
Secretariat of AFSA through the office of the Registrar. This notice
must contain certain prescribed particulars,
and the ‘
first
fee
’ payable to AFSA. It is
however then still up to AFSA to decide whether to accept the
referral or not, in its own discretion.”
Analysis
[27]
The
intractable question is:
“Is the meaning of a contract to be understood on the basis of
the subjective intentions of the parties to the contract or
the
objective manifestations of their consensus?”
[9]
Put differently: what becomes of what was meant by the parties but
not written in the contract
vis
a vis
what
was written in the contract but not meant? It is common cause that
the parties agreed, under clause 7, that the arbitration
would be in
terms of the rules of AFSA. However, during the arbitration, they
opted for a private arbitration outside AFSA rules,
as stated in both
the founding and answering affidavits. At paragraphs 24 and 25 of the
founding affidavit, the applicant stated:
“
The
arbitration proceedings commenced on 2 and 3 March 2023 and
thereafter resumed (as a part head) on 2 and 3 May 2023, until 19
August 2023, being the date on which final argument was presented.
During the course of the
arbitration and to curtail the increment of further costs the parties
jointly agreed to administer the
arbitration themselves (namely
transitioning the process to a private arbitration), thereby
terminating the services of AFSA whereafter
the arbitration proceeded
as a private arbitration without the administration under the
auspices of AFSA.
[28]
Confirming that the arbitration was conducted outside the aegis of
AFSA, at paragraph 26 of the answering affidavit,
the respondents
stated:
“
Artio
and
the liquidators defended the claim. The arbitration was initially
conducted under the auspices of AFSA under reference AFSA
PTA
02092022 but during the arbitration the parties agreed to administer
the arbitration amongst themselves.”
[29]
To make matters worse, clause 7 did not cater for
an appeal. This much is acknowledged by the parties. At paragraph 17
of the answering
affidavit, the respondents wrote:
“
The
Agreement of Sale contained an arbitration clause in clause 7. It did
not provide for a right of appeal and simply stated:”
[30]
In dealing with the applicant’s failure to
comply with Article 22, it is telling that, at paragraph 34 in their
answering
affidavit, the respondents wrote the following:
“
The
applicant failed to notify the Secretariat of the
appeal, which is understandable as the parties agreed not to use
AFSA. However,
the applicant took no further steps to prosecute the
appeal and JRI suggested that a meeting be held to agree on the
process as
is evident from the correspondence annexed...”
[31]
Kuyasa
mirrors
the present matter in many respects, and paragraphs 12 and 13 of the
judgment the court could easily have been referring
to this matter
when it held:
“
The
parties administered the arbitration process themselves. They
exchanged pleadings between themselves, and ultimately convened
a
pre-arbitration conference on 18 February 2019. The pre-arbitration
conference was attended by the parties’ legal representatives
and the arbitrator, and was minuted. The minutes of the
pre-arbitration conference was signed by the legal representatives
and
the arbitrator on 26 February 2019. Of importance
in
casu
, it was agreed in clause 2 of
the minute that the AFSA commercial rules shall apply (clause 2.1),
and AFSA shall be appointed to
administer the arbitration (clause
2.2).
[13]
It was in the end common cause that from the outset of the
arbitration proceedings, the dispute (arbitration) was not referred
or submitted to AFSA for administration, nor was the arbitration
conducted under the auspices or supervision of AFSA. It was also
common cause that despite the provisions of clause 2.2 of the
pre-arbitration minute of 26 February 2019, AFSA was never appointed
to administer the arbitration. At all times, the arbitration
proceedings were managed by the arbitrator herself, and the parties
dealt with it between themselves, until the arbitrator ultimately
rendered her award.”
[32]
I cannot conceive of any reason why I should not
align myself with the
Kuyasa matter.
Considering
a scenario akin to the factual matrix of this case, the court in
Kuyasa
held:
“
So,
if the arbitration is conducted under the auspices / administration
of AFSA, then obviously all its Rules will apply without
more,
subject only to what the parties may have otherwise agreed to as
recorded in the arbitration agreement itself. But what if
the parties
administer the arbitration themselves, without engaging AFSA as
prescribed by the various articles in the AFSA Rules
referred to
above, but nonetheless agree to conduct the arbitration ‘
in
accordance with
’ the AFSA Rules?
[43] Surely, as a
matter of common sense and logic, an arbitration cannot be conducted
under the auspices of AFSA (or differently
put administered by AFSA),
where the referring party does not file a referral with AFSA, no fees
are paid to it, it does not manage
the case, and it does not appoint
and / or brief the arbitrator. Therefore, none of these articles can
apply, even though other
articles relating to issues such as,
inter
alia
, the powers of an arbitrator, the issuing of awards, calling
of witnesses, representation of the parties, and awards of costs,
would.”
[33]
What
is more, since clause 7 did not deal with an appeal, this court
cannot fashion an agreement for the parties by dictating that
Article
22 finds application. Article 22 is self-explanatory, it requires the
parties to agree in writing that an interim award
or a final award of
an arbitrator shall be subject to a right of appeal. This is not the
case in this matter. To save costs, the
parties, as in
Kuyasa
“administered the arbitration process themselves”
[10]
[34]
To me, it is patent that this case strikingly
resembles
Kuyasa
.
The failure to agree on the modus operandi of the appeal is
attributable to a number of issues, such as the health challenges
of
the applicant’s attorney or the inaccuracies such as the clause
inserted by Reyneke that the failure to follow steps outlined
would
lead to the collapse of the appeal. One thing is for certain, the
applicant filed a notice of appealed promptly with a view
to appeal
the decision of the arbitrator. The fact that is that the parties
never reached
ad idem
does
not, in of itself, lapse the right of the appeal.
[35]
In
casu
,
can I ignore the conduct of the parties pre and post the arbitration
award? What about the engagement between the legal representatives
of
the parties on procedural steps of the appeal? It is certainly not
without significance that the respondent identified two judges,
Jonathan Hefer and Ben du Plessis, to be appointed as the appeal
panel. As already stated, the applicant wanted three judges. To
me,
in the absence of a written and signed agreement, it is of no moment
that the appeal was referred to as being in terms of Article
22. The
plain import of paragraph 7 is that the parties did not factor in the
possibility of an appeal. It is of considerable importance
that
Article 22 uses the language “shall not be appealable”,
whilst the respondents use the word lapsed. An ordinary
meaning of
lapse is expired.
[36]
The parol evidence rule is still very much
part of South African law but must be understood in the context of a
constitutional legal
framework. The cold interpretation of contracts
has been and in fact must be “developed” to be in line
with the Bill
of Rights of the Constitution. The infusion of the
spirit of
ubuntu
in the law of contract is long overdue. Due to the abysmal Gini
coefficient and skewed economic power dynamics, South Africa is
awashed with contracts,
ex facie,
reflect the meeting of the minds of the
parties. When in truth, it is one party who dictates all the terms.
Hence, the approach
adopted in
Edumeni
is laudable. If you ask me, the view that, save where there are
exceptional circumstances such as fraud or duress, extrinsic evidence
must not be entertained to modify a contract is archaic and denudes
the Constitution of the spirit, purport and objects of the
Bill of
Rights apparels.
[37]
In the
University
of Johannesburg
matter, the court had
the occasion to look at the parol evidence rule, and held:
“
In
KPMG
and
Swanepoel
,
the Supreme Court of Appeal held that the parol evidence rule remains
part of our law, and is one of the caveats to the principle
that
extrinsic contextual evidence may be admitted. The essence of
the rule was most aptly captured in the case of
Vianini
Ferro-Concrete Pipes
, where it was
stated:
“
Now
this Court has accepted the rule that when a contract has been
reduced to writing, the writing is, in general, regarded as the
exclusive memorial of the transaction and in a suit between the
parties no evidence to prove its terms may be given save the document
or secondary evidence of its contents, nor may the contents of such
document be contradicted, altered, added to or varied by parol
evidence.”
[89] The rule
consists of two sub-rules. This duality was outlined by Corbett
JA in
Johnston
:
“
As
has been indicated, the parol evidence rule is not a single rule.
It in fact branches into two independent rules or sets
of rules: (1)
the integration rule . . . which defines the limits of the contract,
and (2) the [interpretation] rule, or set of
rules, which determines
when and to what extent extrinsic evidence may be adduced to explain
or affect the meaning of the words
contained in a written contract.”
[90] The parol
evidence rule therefore has both an integration facet and an
interpretation facet. It is the latter facet
that was relied on
by the Supreme Court of Appeal. That facet of the rule was
explained by Corbett JA as follows:
“
In
many instances recourse to evidence of an earlier or contemporaneous
oral agreement would, in any event, be precluded by . .
. that branch
of the ‘rule’ which prescribes that, subject to certain
qualifications, when a contract has been reduced
to writing, the
writing is regarded as the exclusive embodiment or memorial of the
transaction and no extrinsic evidence may be
given of other
utterances or jural acts by the parties which would have the effect
of contradicting, altering, adding to or varying
the written
contract. The extrinsic evidence is excluded because it relates
to matters which, by reason of the reduction
of the contract to
writing and its integration in a single memorial, have become legally
immaterial or irrelevant.”
[38]
It is for these reasons that I respectfully
disagree with counsel for the respondent that the appeal has lapsed.
When one applies
the triad of text, context and purpose, the
inescapable conclusion is that the parties wanted to administer the
appeal themselves.
Declaratory relief
[39]
It is well-known that at common law courts
did not have the power to grant declaratory orders without
consequential relief. Section
s 21(1) (c) of the Superior Courts
Practise reads:
“
A
Division has jurisdiction over all persons residing or being in, and
in relation to all causes arising and all offences tribal
within, its
area of jurisdiction and all matters of which it may according to law
take cognizance, and has the power-
(c) in
its discretion, and at the instance of any interested person, to
inquire into and determine any existing, future or contingent
right
or obligation, notwithstanding that such person cannot claim any
relief consequential upon the determination.”
[40]
I
am minded to accede to the applicant’s prayer for a declaratory
order. In determining whether to grant a declaratory order,
one must
keep in mind what was said in the matter of
Cordiant
Trading CC v Daimler Chrysler Financial Services
(Pty) Ltd.
[11]
The court held:
“
Put
differently, the two-stage approach under the subsection consists of
the following. During the first leg of the enquiry the
court must be
satisfied that the applicant has an interest in an ‘existing,
future or contingent right or obligation’.
At this stage the
focus is only upon establishing that the necessary conditions
precedent for the exercise of the court’s
discretion exist. If
the court is satisfied that the existence of such conditions has been
proved, it has to exercise the discretion
by deciding either to
refuse or grant the order sought. The consideration of whether or not
to grant the order constitutes the
second leg of the enquiry.”
[12]
Costs
[41]
It is trite that the award of costs rests
entirely within the discretion of the court, save for a few
instances. I am of the view
that costs should be costs in the appeal.
ORDER
1. It is declared that
the applicant’s notice of appeal dated 27 August 2023 against
the arbitration award dated 19 August
2023 has not lapsed
2. The applicant and the
respondents are directed to convene and attend a pre-appeal
arbitration meeting to be held within 15 days
of the date of this
order with a view to reaching an agreement on the number of
arbitrators to hear the appeal.
3. The costs are to be
costs in the appeal.
M. P. MOTHA
JUDGE OF THE HIGH
COURT
PRETORIA
Date of hearing:
19
February 2025
Date of judgment: 28
March 2025
For
the Applicant:
D.
Ramdhani SC instructed by Asif Latib Attorneys Inc.
For
the Respondents:
M.
Louw instructed by Jaco Roos Attorneys Inc.
[1]
[2009]
ZACC 6; 2009 (4) SA 529 (CC)
[2]
Supra
para 195
[3]
Supra
para 197
[4]
[2021]
ZACC 13
;
2021 (8) BCLR 807
(CC);
2021 (6) SA 1
(CC) (11 June 2021
[5]
Para
11.3 f the Respondent’s heads of argument
[6]
(470/2020)
[2021] ZASCA 99
;
[2021] 3 All SA 647
(SCA);
2022 (1) SA 100
(SCA) (9
July 2021)
[7]
Supra
para 26
[8]
(084710/2023)
[2024] ZAGPPHC 806 (24 July 2024)
[9]
Capital
para 42.
[10]
Supra
para 12.
[11]
## [12]Cordiant
Trading CC v Daimler Chrysler Financial Services (Pty) Ltd
(237/2004) [2005] ZASCA 50; [2006] 1 All SA 103 (SCA); 2005
(6) SA
205 (SCA) (30 May 2005 para 18
[12]
Cordiant
Trading CC v Daimler Chrysler Financial Services (Pty) Ltd
(237/2004) [2005] ZASCA 50; [2006] 1 All SA 103 (SCA); 2005
(6) SA
205 (SCA) (30 May 2005 para 18
sino noindex
make_database footer start
Similar Cases
Sibidi and Others v Van As and Others (B2/2024) [2025] ZAGPPHC 466 (14 April 2025)
[2025] ZAGPPHC 466High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria)99% similar
Sibeko v S and Another (Appeal) (A839/2016) [2025] ZAGPPHC 407 (23 April 2025)
[2025] ZAGPPHC 407High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria)99% similar
Sibeko v S and Another (A839/2016) [2025] ZAGPPHC 811 (29 July 2025)
[2025] ZAGPPHC 811High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria)99% similar
K2015353134 (South Africa) (Pty) Limited v Sibiya N.O and Others (056154/2024) [2025] ZAGPPHC 652 (25 June 2025)
[2025] ZAGPPHC 652High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria)99% similar
Sibanyoni v S (A323/24) [2025] ZAGPPHC 201 (25 February 2025)
[2025] ZAGPPHC 201High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Pretoria)99% similar