- August 2, 2023
- |Civil Law, Practice, And Procedure, Concise Law Reports (CLR)
The appellants, aggrieved by a judgment and orders of the High Court, on 25 September 2020 filed a notice to appeal. At the time when the appellants filed the notice of appeal, they were legally represented. The appellants, however, only lodged the appeal record on 6 May 2021. On 13 January 2021, the appellant’s legal practitioner withdrew as legal practitioner for the appellants, thus leaving the appellants unrepresented. On 24 February 2021, the Registrar of the Supreme Court addressed a letter to the first appellant informing him of the various non-compliances with the rules of the Court. On 1 September 2021, the appellants filed their application for condonation for their non-compliance with the rules of the court.
On 16 December 2022, the registrar of this Court informed the parties that the hearing of the application for condonation and, if necessary, the hearing of the appeal on the merits was set down for 6 April 2023. On that day, the appellants appeared before the court for purposes of the hearing and nominated four of the 18 appellants to speak on their behalf. However, it became apparent that the four appellants who were designated to speak on behalf of the other 14 appellants were not conversant with the English language and could thus not follow the proceedings, and neither could the court make out what they were saying. The court thus accordingly postponed the proceedings to 6 June 2023 to secure interpreters.
On 2 June 2023, the appellants filed additional documents in support of their condonation application. When the matter appeared on 6 June 2023, the court enquired from the appellants what exactly they were seeking from the court. Their response, in a nutshell, was that they seek a postponement of the matter to secure funding for legal representation. The respondent opposed the application for postponement on the basis that the appellants’ application is an unnecessary delay and attempt to avoid their eviction from the property and that it has the right to have the matter finalized owing to the nature of the relief sought as well as the history of the matter.
UEITELE AJA (DAMASEB DCJ and MAINGA JA concurring):
- an application for postponement of a hearing cannot be claimed as of right, the court must be satisfied that it is in the interests of justice to postpone. The court will not grant postponement simply because parties agree to it, good cause has to be shown.
- Held further that, the granting of a postponement is in the discretion of the court, which discretion must be exercised judicially and not capriciously or upon any wrong principle, but for substantial reasons. The relevant factors were set out.
- Held furthermore that, the interest of justice is not only the interests of the parties themselves but also the public interest. The appellants’ application for postponement in respect of their application for condonation of their non-compliance with the rules of this Court is refused.
As a result, the appeal was struck from the roll with no order as to costs.