Case Law[2025] ZAKZDHC 45South Africa
Pilisanani Trading Enterprise 50 CC v Information Regulator (South Africa) and Others (D1269/2022) [2025] ZAKZDHC 45 (16 July 2025)
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: Kwazulu-Natal High Court, Durban
South Africa: Kwazulu-Natal High Court, Durban
You are here:
SAFLII
>>
Databases
>>
South Africa: Kwazulu-Natal High Court, Durban
>>
2025
>>
[2025] ZAKZDHC 45
|
Noteup
|
LawCite
sino index
## Pilisanani Trading Enterprise 50 CC v Information Regulator (South Africa) and Others (D1269/2022) [2025] ZAKZDHC 45 (16 July 2025)
Pilisanani Trading Enterprise 50 CC v Information Regulator (South Africa) and Others (D1269/2022) [2025] ZAKZDHC 45 (16 July 2025)
Download original files
PDF format
RTF format
make_database: source=/home/saflii//raw/ZAKZDHC/Data/2025_45.html
sino date 16 July 2025
IN
THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA
KWAZULU NATAL
LOCAL DIVISION, DURBAN
CASE
NO.: D1269/2022
In
the matter between:
PILISANANI
TRADING ENTERPRISE 50 CC
Applicant
and
THE
INFORMATION REGULATOR (SOUTH AFRICA)
First Respondent
RICHARDS
BAY MINING (PTY) LTD t/a RICHARDS
BAY
MINERALS
Second Respondent
RICHARDS
BAY TITANIUM (PTY) LTD t/a RICHARDS
BAY
MINERALS
Third Respondent
RIO
TINTO MANAGEMENT SERVICES SOUTH
AFRICA
(PTY) LTD t/a RIO TINTO
Fourth Respondent
JUDGMENT
Olsen
J:
[1]
On 16
th
May 2022 the applicant, Pilisanani Trading
Enterprise 50 CC delivered a complaint to the Information Regulator,
an office established
in terms of
s 39
of the
Protection of Personal
Information Act, 2013
. The Information Regulator is the first
respondent. The complaint concerned what the applicant regarded as
the unlawful failure
of the second, third and fourth respondents to
produce records which had been requested of them. The complaint was
delivered out
of time. The Regulator advised the applicant that an
application to condone this would be required. It was delivered. The
application
for condonation was refused. The applicant now asks this
court to review and set aside the Regulator’s decision to
refuse
condonation, as well as the finding made during the course of
considering the application for condonation that there was in any
event no merit in the complaint. This court is also asked to
substitute its own decision for that of the Regulator by granting
the
condonation which the Regulator had been asked to grant.
[2]
However the Regulator may have expressed itself in recording its view
that the
complaint was without merit, its finding in that regard is
in my view not reviewable. It was necessary and appropriate for the
Regulator to consider the merits of the complaint as a prominent
feature of the application for condonation for the late delivery
of
the complaint. But it had no jurisdiction to make a final binding
decision in regard to that issue until and unless it granted
the
application for condonation. In considering the application for
condonation the Regulator was obliged to approach the subject
in the
manner set out in paragraph 51 of the judgment in
Golden Core
Trade and Invest (Pty) Limited v Merafong City Local Municipality and
another
[2023] 4 All SA 589
(SCA)
“
Whether a delay
should be overlooked does not and should not entail a determination
of the merits of the review or collateral challenge.
The merits of
the challenge are to be weighed on the following basis: if the delay
is to be overlooked, is there a challenge that
warrants the attention
of the court? In other words, whether there is a serious question to
be decided. To decide the merits assumes
the very jurisdiction that
is yet to be determined.”
A
proper reading of the Regulator’s decision reveals that it
approached the issue of the merits of the complaint in
that
fashion.
[3]
A further order sought is one authorising the applicant to continue
to pursue
an earlier application that it launched out of this court
to compel the production of the records in question. That application
(the “first application”) was launched prematurely,
because it preceded the submission of the complaint to the Regulator.
The operative provision is s 78 (1) of the Promotion of Access to
Information Act, 2000 (PAIA), which is to the effect that an
application may only be made to court for relief after the complaints
procedure referred to in s 77A of PAIA has been exhausted.
In order
to “exhaust” a procedure one must engage with it
according to its terms, and, to proceed further, exit the
procedure
without the relief which was sought. If that happens relief may be
sought from the court. This court cannot be asked
to authorise the
continued pursuit of the earlier premature application unless the
Regulator has considered the applicant’s
complaints, and
refused to grant the relief sought by the applicant. The Regulator
has not yet done so because it refused the application
for
condonation.
[4]
The applicant has asked in the alternative that the matter be
remitted to the
Regulator. That is the correct approach. I
accordingly proposed to approach this case upon the basis that what
is before this court
is an application to review and set aside the
Regulator’s decision to refuse to condone the late delivery of
the complaint.
If it is found that such an order should be granted a
decision must then be made as to whether the court will substitute
its own
decision on the application for condonation for that of the
Regulator. Depending on the decision on that issue the matter would
then fall to be remitted to the Regulator either to
(a) reconsider
condonation, and if it is granted to consider the merits of the
complaint; or
(b) to consider the
merits of the complaint.
[5]
The second, third and fourth respondents in these proceedings are
Richards Bay
Mining (Pty) Ltd, trading as Richards Bay Minerals;
Richards Bay Titanium (Pty) Ltd, trading as Richards Bay Minerals;
and Rio
Tinto Management Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, trading
as Rio Tinto. The precise nature of the relationship between the
second and third respondents cannot be discerned from the papers in
this application. One might assume from the fact that they share
the
trade name “Richards Bay Minerals” that they are
partners. On the other hand it may be that the mining and industrial
operation conducted on the North coast of KwaZulu-Natal comprises two
separate business enterprises whose efforts in their respective
fields produce and dispose of the output of the mining enterprise
referred to as Richards Bay Minerals (“RBM”). The
fourth
respondent, as its name implies, appears to provide management
services to RBM. A Mr Nair signed an affidavit in partial
response to
the request for information on behalf of RBM and introduced himself
as follows.
“
I am currently
employed by Rio Tinto Management Services (Pty) Ltd and provide
services for the Rio Tinto Group and to [RBM] as
the Senior Business
Partner…”
Whether
the terminology employed by Mr Nair is mere “business-speak”,
or whether he intended to convey that the fourth
respondent is a
partner of Richards Bay Minerals, and that Richards Bay Minerals is
indeed a partnership, is not clear.
[6]
The applicant is in the business of providing services to industry. I
think it fair
to say on the papers before me that RBM was the
applicant’s major customer.
[7]
One assumes that any reasonable and diligent business enterprise
takes
care in the selection of persons it will engage to provide
services which are necessary for the business in question to
function.
The service provider should be capable of performing the
service, and of doing so on terms which the enterprise finds
acceptable.
RBM has formalised its approach to this sort of vetting
exercise. Service providers which meet its standards may be accorded
“vendor
status”. As I understand the applicant’s
case, RBM’s officials who make decisions as to the allocation
of such
outsourced services or works may allocate work to service
providers who have vendor status.
[8]
It is clear on the papers that vendor status does not entitle any
service provider
to receive work from RBM. It qualifies one to
receive work, but establishes no entitlement to receive work.
[9]
Things started to go awry in the relationship between RBM and the
applicant.
In the result by letter dated 24
th
March 2021
the applicant was informed that its vendor status was terminated.
That meant that it would no longer be considered a
service provider
to whom work could be allocated as and when needed.
[10]
It appears that certain correspondence changed hands until by letter
dated 23
rd
June 2021 the applicant drew the attention of
RBM to clause 22 of the “Rio Tinto Global Purchase Order
Conditions for Goods
and Services” which, according to the
letter, provided that a party “may give the other a request to
negotiate specifying
the dispute and requiring its resolution under
clause 22”. The letter went on to demand the reinstatement of
the applicant’s
vendor status, and to indicate that if that was
not done within 72 hours it would “proceed to enforce its
remedies, which
may include invoking the provisions of clause 22 of
the contract and/or proceeding by way of High Court application for
the review
of Rio Tinto/RBM’s unlawful conduct.” The
applicant’s misapprehension that RBM’s decision no longer
to
classify the applicant as having vendor status is susceptible to
judicial review was finally abandoned in its replying affidavit
in
these proceedings. Notwithstanding RBM’s failure to restore
vendor status to the applicant, the latter failed to pursue
the right
to negotiate under the Rio Tinto Global Purchase Order Conditions.
Instead, on 26
th
July 2021, the applicant, represented by
its attorneys, submitted a request for access to records held by the
respondents.
[11]
The following records were requested.
(a) “Procurements
Government Committee Report on [Pilisanani] and any further report
carried out by RBM internal audit
team.” (The word “Government”
should be “Governance”, and was understood as such.)
(b) “Any
non-conformance report in respect of [Pilisanani]”.
(c) “Proof
of sending to [Pilisanani] of the
(1) PGC report and
(2) Non-conformance
report.”
Under
the heading “Particulars of Private Body” the applicant
addressed the request to “The Head: Rio Tinto and/or
Richards
Bay Minerals”. I will revert to the request form later.
[12]
By letter dated 19
th
August 2021 (which must have been
sent about 4 days later, because an affidavit by Mr Nair attested to
on 23
rd
August 2021 accompanied it) the second to fourth
respondents declined to make any records available.
[13]
Believing that it was entitled to do so, on 4
th
February
2022, 165 days after the second to fourth respondents had refused to
provide the records, the applicant launched an application
to this
court for an order that the records be produced. It received the
second to fourth respondents answering affidavit on 25
th
March 2022 in which it was informed that the first application was
premature. It then took just over seven weeks to submit its
complaint
to the first respondent, unaccompanied by the application for
condonation which was obviously required and which was
only produced
a further week later. The first respondent’s decision refusing
condonation reached the applicant on 13
th
June 2022. The
present application to review the Regulator’s decision was
issued on 13
th
December 2022 which by my count is 182 days
after the decision was conveyed to the applicant. (Nothing is made of
that delay in
this case.) The applicant’s propensity to delay
is remarkable.
[14]
The decision of the first respondent on the application for
condonation was
expressed as follows.
“
1) The
complaint has not been submitted within the period referred to in
section 77A (2) of PAIA and there are no reasonable
grounds to
condone the late submission.
2) There are
therefore no merits in the complaint and, given the unjustified delay
in lodging the complaint, the condonation
application is rejected. In
the circumstances any further action by the Regulator would be
inappropriate or unnecessary.”
The
wording employed in the decision reflects the provisions of s 77D of
PAIA which provides as follows in relevant part.
“
(1) The
Information Regulator, after investigating a complaint in terms of s
77A, may decide to take no action or, as the case may
be, require no
further action in respect of the complaint if, in the Information
Regulator’s opinion-
(a) The complaint
has not been submitted within the period referred to in s 77A (2) and
there are no reasonable grounds to
condone the late submission;
(b) … ; or
(c) It
appears to the Information Regulator that, having regard to all the
circumstances of the case, any further action
is unnecessary or
inappropriate.”
[15]
The reasons given for the decision may be summarised as follows.
(a) The complainant
“failed to provide sufficient and persuasive reasons for the
late submission of the complaint”.
(b) Neither the
written request submitted to the second to fourth respondents nor the
complaint form discloses the underlying
right sought to be exercised
or protected through the production of the records requested.
(c) A single
request cannot be made of multiple private bodies using the
linguistic device “and/or”. There
are three private
bodies in this case (i.e. the second, third and fourth respondents),
and the request ought to have been made
individually to each of them.
(d) No prejudice
would be suffered by the applicant if condonation is refused. It
could withdraw the first application and
deliver proper requests for
records to each of the private bodies concerned.
[16]
The applicant’s grounds of review of the first respondent’s
decision,
stated expressly in both its founding affidavit and
supplementary founding affidavit, are that the decision was
unreasonable and
irrational. The applicant accordingly relies on ss
6(2)(f) and (h) of PAJA. The claim that the decision was irrational
will be
disposed of immediately. Section 6(2)(f)(ii) of PAJA permits
the court to review administrative action if it is not rationally
connected to
“
(aa)
the purpose for which it was taken;
(bb)
the purpose of the empowering provision;
(cc)
the information before the administrator; or
(dd)
the reasons given for it by the administrator”.
Counsel
for the applicant delivered no argument in support of the proposition
that any of the required rational connections were
absent. In my view
he was correct in adopting that approach. His argument on the subject
of reasonableness addressed the reasons
given for the Regulator’s
decision, asserting that
(a) in some
instances they were either fallacious or weak; and
(b) viewed
collectively, they could not reasonably support the decision which
was made.
The
question to be decided is accordingly whether the applicant has
established the grounds of review in s 6(2)(h) of PAJA.
[17]
Before dealing with the reasons given by the first respondent for
reaching its decision
it is perhaps advisable to consider in more
general terms the approach which ought to be adopted by the first
respondent when asked
to condone the late delivery of a complaint.
[18]
Section 7(1) of PAJA provides,
inter alia
, that proceedings
for judicial review must be instituted within 180 days. Section 77A
of PAIA is to the same effect, as it requires
a requestor to lodge a
complaint within 180 days of the decision to which the complaint
relates. Each of s 9 of PAJA and s 77D(1)(a)
of PAIA allows its
processes to be pursued despite delay beyond 180 days, in the case of
the former provision upon the grant of
a court order extending the
period in the interests of justice, and in the case of the latter
provision by allowing condonation
when there are reasonable grounds
to grant it. In my view the difference between the words used in in
the two enactments to allow
for relaxation of the time bar signifies
no material difference between them. In
Opposition to Urban
Tolling Alliance v South African National Roads Agency Limited
[2013] 4 All SA 639
(SCA) it was held that s 7(1) of PAJA reflected a
determination by the legislature that a delay exceeding 180 days is
per se
unreasonable. In the result, unless the period is
extended under s 9 of PAJA, a court may not entertain the review
application
at all. It is apparent from what I stated earlier in this
judgment, that in my view the manner in which the 180 day deadline
has
been dealt with in PAIA is to the same effect. Absent condonation
the first respondent has no jurisdiction to entertain the complaint
at all.
[19]
Condoning the delay under s 77D of PAIA means overlooking it. I see
no
signifier in PAIA that suggests that the relevant factors are
different, or materially different in any event, to those to be taken
into account by a court when considering whether to overlook an
unreasonable delay in launching review proceedings. The wide-ranging
discussion on the subject of assessing delay in paragraphs 44 to 70
of the judgment in
Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality v ASLA
Construction (Pty) Ltd
2019 (4) SA 331
(CC) is helpful in
identifying the relevant considerations. In the context of the
present litigation I suggest that the following
are prominent matters
which ought to be considered by the Information Regulator.
(a) It is a feature
of the rule of law that delays should not be tolerated. There is a
broad public interest in the achievement
of certainty in affairs. In
any particular case an individual’s reasonable expectation is
implicated, that it should be entitled
to move on with reasonable
certainty regarding the position from which it proceeds.
(b) There must be
an explanation for the delay, that is to say for all of it. The
conduct of the party responsible for the
delay is material. The
degree of that party’s fault in relation to the delay is a
significant feature of its conduct.
(c) Prejudice
or potential prejudice to both sides in granting or refusing
condonation is a consideration.
(d) The enquiry is
fact driven. The relative importance or prominence of each of the
considerations which the Information
Regulator should consider
depends on the context. There is no reason to suppose that in any
particular case they will weigh equally
in the scales.
Delay
and the conduct of the applicant
[20]
The
Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013
provided for the
amendment of PAIA to introduce the role of the Information Regulator,
and the provision requiring the complaints
procedure of that office
to be exhausted before acquiring a right to approach the court for
assistance. The amendments were not
brought into effect immediately.
Government Gazette number 43461 dated 22
nd
June 2020 gave
notice that the amendments would come into effect a year later, on
30
th
June 2021. Just short of a month after that the
applicant made its request for records from the second to fourth
respondents, which
was declined on or about 23
rd
August
2021. The document recording the response of the second to fourth
respondents was signed by a Mr Jachs who is described
as “Legal
Counsel – Commercial”. It appears that he also, like the
applicant, was unaware of the fact that the
amended provisions had
come into force. In his notice declining the request he informed the
applicant that it “may lodge
an application with the court
against the refusal in accordance with the Act”. According to
the applicant it only learnt
of the problem when the answering
affidavit in the first application was delivered by the second to
fourth respondents on 25
th
March 2022. By then the
180 day time limit to submit a complaint to the Regulator had
long passed.
[21]
This scenario may be seen to engage the old truism that ignorance of
the law
is no excuse. Ignorance is, however, at least an explanation
for the delay up to 25
th
March 2022. The extent to which
the explanation that the delay was the product of ignorance of the
law may ripen into a factor
making a contribution to a reasoned
decision in favour of condonation must depend on the facts of each
case. We are not dealing
here with a lay individual attempting to
traverse what to him or her may appear to be a maze set up by PAIA.
The applicant is a
commercial operation pursuing commercial
interests, and could afford to engage and did engage the services of
an attorney to assist
it from the very beginning. The only
explanation for the attorney’s ignorance which was offered in
the application to the
first respondent for condonation reads as
follows.
“
The applicant’s
legal representatives were unaware of the amendments to the Act,
effective from 30
th
June 2021,
inter alia
as a
result of difficulties in the circulation of Government Gazettes
promulgating new legislation as well as the lack of or poor
notification of the Act having been amended.”
In
my view that explanation is of doubtful value in the applicant’s
pursuit of condonation. An attorney who purports to be
qualified to
represent a client in proceedings in which access to information is
sought may reasonably be expected to acquaint
herself with the
current legislative provisions on the subject.
[22]
The Information Regulator bears some responsibility for the
maintenance
of the integrity of the processes of that office. The 180
day deadline is not an arbitrary provision. It is designed to impose
finality – to bring proceedings to an end – when there
has been inaction for a period of 180 days. In exercising the
power
to grant condonation the Information Regulator must take care not to
act in a way which undermines that legislative intent.
In the papers
before me the applicant has more than once attempted to shift the
blame for its predicament onto the shoulders of
the second to fourth
respondents. That argument would have carried more cogency if this
was a case of misleading a lay requestor
attempting to gain access to
records without professional assistance. It is a factor, but I am not
sure that it makes that much
difference to the Information
Regulator’s approach to the issue, that the ignorance of the
legal position resided not only
in the applicant’s attorney,
but also in the mind of the in-house legal counsel employed by the
second to fourth respondents.
[23]
No explanation at all was tendered to the Information Regulator to
justify
the delay of seven weeks between when the applicant had
knowledge of the problem, and the date of submission of the complaint
to
the Regulator. It is an immutable requirement of all
applications for condonation that the explanation for the delay must
traverse the whole of the period of delay. The applicant failed to
meet that requirement. Having been notified of its default the
applicant should have acted immediately. It had only recently
delivered a founding affidavit (and a supplementary founding
affidavit)
in the first application setting out its entire case for
provision of the records. With that material readily to hand,
delaying
delivery of its complaint for seven weeks was in my view
inexcusable.
[24]
The applicant has not conducted itself appropriately. It took nearly
the full
180 days which it believed to be available to launch the
first application to this court when there was no obvious reason for
it
to do so. Its subsequent delay in lodging its complaint
illustrates the applicant’s blatant disregard for the obvious
interests
of the second to fourth respondents in achieving finality
in the dispute over access to records.
[25]
The Information Regulator cannot be faulted for finding that the
applicant failed to provide
sufficient and persuasive reasons for the
late submission of the complaint. Condonation might nevertheless have
been reasonably
granted if the other considerations material and
relevant to the enquiry supported condonation in the interests of
justice.
The
Exercise or Protection of a Right
[26]
Section 32(1) of the Constitution reads as follows.
“
Everyone has the
right of access to-
(a) any information
held by the State;
(b) any information
that is held by another person and that is required for the exercise
or protection of any rights.”
The
qualification to the right of access to information held by persons
other than the State, that the information should be “required
for the exercise or protection of any rights”, is the express
provision which lays the foundation for the cohabitation of
s 14 of
the Constitution (the right to privacy) and s 32 in the same
constitution.
[27]
Until the enactment of PAIA access to information held by the State
was
confined by the same qualification as is presently applicable
only in the case of persons other than the State. The effect of the
qualification was simply summarised in paragraph 28 of the judgment
in
Cape Metropolitan Counsel v Metro Inspection Services Western
Cape CC and others
2001(10) BCLR 1026 (A).
“
Information can
only be required for the exercise or protection of a right if it will
be of assistance in the exercise or protection
of the right. It
follows that, in order to make out a case for access to information
in terms of s 32, an applicant has to state
what the right is that he
wishes to exercise or protect, what the information is which is
required and how that information would
assist him in exercising or
protecting that right.”
PAIA
follows the same course. Section 50(1) sets out the conditions which
must be met for a requestor to be entitled to records
of a private
body. The first requirement is that the record must be required for
the exercise or protection of any rights. The
second is that the
requestor must comply with the procedural requirements laid down in
PAIA relating to a request for access to
the record in question.
Section 53(1) requires a request for access to a record of a private
body to be made in the prescribed
form. Section 53(2) lays down that
the form for such a request must at least require the requestor
concerned to meet certain conditions.
One of them is that it must
“identify the right the requestor is seeking to exercise or
protect and provide an explanation
of why the requested record is
required for the exercise or protection of that right”.
[28]
Paragraph G of the form in question is headed “Particulars of
Right to be Exercised
or Protected”. Paragraph G1 requires the
requestor to indicate “which right is to be exercised or
protected”.
In response the applicant’s form reads as
follows.
“
Access to
information in terms of section 32 of the Constitution of the
Republic of South Africa.”
Paragraph
G2 requires the requestor to explain why the records requested are
“required for the exercise or protection of the
aforementioned
right”. The applicant’s explanation read as follows.
“
The right to
consider the documentation sought for purposes of considering whether
a right of relief may lie against any party liable
to enable the
party seeking the documentation to give consideration to instituting
an appropriate claim, including a claim for
damages.”
To
the extent that any meaning can be discerned in the applicants answer
to paragraph G2 of the form, it establishes or reveals
no connection
between it and the right set out in paragraph G1 of the form. The
Information Regulator stressed that it is the “underlying
right” which must be disclosed, by which is meant the right to
be exercised or protected with the assistance of the records
identified in the request. It is difficult to conceive of any
circumstances in which a person’s right of access to
information
can feature as the right in paragraph G1 of the request
form. Delivering the request constitutes the exercise (or an attempt
thereat)
of that very right.
[29]
For the reasons already given it is clear that a failure to state the
right
which is sought to be exercised or protected with the
assistance of the records to which access is requested rendered the
request
fatally defective. In their response to the request the
second to fourth respondents drew attention to the fact that the
right
in question had not been disclosed. They also drew attention to
other shortcomings in the form which had been submitted to them.
The
response presented by those respondents nevertheless dealt with the
documents, recording that some of them did not exist at
all, and that
for the rest their production was excused by factors such as a
reasonable expectation that their production might
endanger the life
or physical safety of committee members and their internal audit
team. In my view the second to fourth respondents
could in fact both
reasonably and lawfully have stated that they declined to make any
response until a proper request, disclosing
the right in question,
and the manner in which the records related to the exercise or
protection of that right, were disclosed.
[30]
It should be added that the right sought to be exercised or protected
was also not
disclosed in the complaint lodged by the applicant with
the Information Regulator. (Despite the topic receiving some
attention
in the papers in the present application I find myself
still unable to identify any statement made on behalf of the
applicant which
discloses a right, or an alleged right, to be
exercised or protected; or which was infringed by the second to
fourth respondents
when RBM decided no longer to afford the applicant
the status of an approved vendor.) In the circumstances the
Information Regulator
correctly found that the complaint raised no
question on the merits which warranted the Regulator’s
attention. An assessment
of the merits of the complaint yielded no
reason to condone the unreasonable delay.
The
Remaining Reasons
[31]
Whilst the Regulator was correct in stating that where multiple
private
bodies are believed to hold records which are being sought, a
separate request to each is required, that shortcoming in the
applicant’s
request for information could reasonably have been
overlooked in this case, if other considerations supported
condonation. I say
this because of the lack of clarity regarding the
relationship between the three respondents which may involve them
constituting
a single “private body” known as RBM. Whilst
the three respondents raised this issue in their response to the
request,
they nevertheless managed to put together a collective
response.
[32]
The Regulator’s finding that refusing condonation would
not prejudice
the applicant, because it could still deliver a request
in proper form, disclosing the right sought to be exercised or
protected,
is more significant than it may at first appear to be. The
point is that this significant defect in the applicant’s
request
was drawn to its attention by RBM in its response delivered
in August 2021. The applicant should then immediately have delivered
fresh requests which met the requirements of PAIA and section G of
the request form. (I should perhaps qualify this statement by
observing that there is nothing in the papers in the present
application to signify that the applicant had a right to the “vendor
status”, the deprivation of which appears to have set off the
chain of events leading to the present litigation; nor any
right to
receive work from RBM. Perhaps the applicant could not then, and
cannot now, identify such a right as a basis for requesting
records
from RBM.)
[33]
In challenging the Regulator’s reason dealt with in the
paragraph immediately
above, the applicant complains that there are
cost implications involved in withdrawing the first application, and
that there “is
also a consideration of further delay in the
relief sought by the applicant”. Even if one excuses the
applicant’s premature
launch of the first application, all of
the delay which had occurred by the time that the Regulator had to
rule on the application
for condonation had been caused by the
applicant.
Conclusion
[34] I
conclude that whilst some of the Regulator’s reasons for
refusing condonation
are less compelling than others, the lack of
merit in the complaint made to the Regulator, and the failure of the
applicant to
fully explain and justify its delays, renders untenable
the applicant’s argument that the refusal of condonation is
reviewable
for unreasonableness.
Order
1.
The application is dismissed with costs.
2.
Counsels fees may be taxed on scale B.
Olsen
J
Case
Information:
Date of Hearing:
10 June 2025
Date of Judgment:
16 July 2025
Counsel for the
Applicant:
A Camp
Instructed by:
Kloppers
Incorporated
Suite 21 Partridge
Place
Richards Bay
Ref: Pam
Pillay/08/P065/004
Tel: 035 780
7300
Email:
pam.pillay@kloppersinc.co.za
c/o EVH Inc
Attorneys
Unit 4, Holwood
Crescent, Holwood Park
La Lucia Ridge
Ref:
EVH/SINE/K1762/0102
Tel:
031 492 7971
Email:
Nikhil@evhinc.co.za
Counsel for the
First Respondent:
L Kutumela
Instructed by:
GMI Attorneys
GLMI House,
Harlequins Office Park
164
Totius Street, Groenkloof,
Pretoria
Tel:
012 428 8601
Email:
tmaodi@gminc.co.za
abees@gminc.co.za
c/o Woodhead Bigby
Attorneys
92 Armstrong Avenue
La Lucia
Counsel
for the Second, Third and
and Fourth
Respondent:
M M Swain
Instructed by:
Cox Yeats Attorneys
Ncondo Chambers, 45
Vuna Close
Umhlanga Ridge
Ref: M
Jackson/gp/17R0010-0047
Tel: 031 536
8500
Email:
mjackson@coxyeats.co.za
sino noindex
make_database footer start
Similar Cases
Talksure Trading (Pty) Ltd v Naidoo and Another (D4630/2021) [2023] ZAKZDHC 50 (28 July 2023)
[2023] ZAKZDHC 50High Court of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal Division, Durban)99% similar
Ixia Trading 616 (Pty) Limited v Von Maltitz and Another (D8163/2024) [2024] ZAKZDHC 75 (18 October 2024)
[2024] ZAKZDHC 75High Court of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal Division, Durban)98% similar
Sydwell Trading CC and Others v Sean Pillay and Company (Pty) Ltd (4581/2021) [2023] ZAKZDHC 24 (16 May 2023)
[2023] ZAKZDHC 24High Court of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal Division, Durban)98% similar
Interlagos Trading (Pty) Ltd and Others v Sundale Free Range Dairy (Pty) Ltd (D8288/2024) [2025] ZAKZDHC 42 (11 July 2025)
[2025] ZAKZDHC 42High Court of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal Division, Durban)98% similar
W.S v N. V (D376/2020 ; D1062/2021) [2025] ZAKZDHC 35 (6 June 2025)
[2025] ZAKZDHC 35High Court of South Africa (KwaZulu-Natal Division, Durban)98% similar