The Environmental Case Law Index is a collection of judgments from 10 African countries on topics relating to environmental law, both substantive and procedural. The collection focuses on cases where an environmental interest interacts with governmental or private interests.
Get started on finding judgments that are relevant to you by browsing the topic list on the left of the screen. Click the arrows next to the topic names to reveal a detailed list of sub-topics. Most judgments are accompanied by a short summary written by subject-area expert postgraduate students from the University of Cape Town.
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Solicitor General v Lesotho Quality Aggregate Industries (Pty) Limited (CIV/T/50/83) [1983] LSCA 21 (24 March 1983); 
EL Index Locus standi in environmental litigation Litigation of environmental issues Environmental law Procedural Fairness Justice and fairness Civil Procedure Minerals, oil and gas Minerals and energy Environmental law Role of state in relation to environment Actors in environmental law Environmental law Administrative Action Administrative LawThe plaintiff instituted an action in the High Court for the eviction of the defendants from a piece of land. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants were carrying on mining operations at the site without holding a mining lease or a mining licence issued in terms of the Mining Rights Act 43 of 1967, hence acting illegally.
It was common cause that the defendants had not been granted a mining lease or a mining licence by the Mining Board. The defendants argued that the plaintiff did not have locus standi to bring an action of eviction because it did not own the land and that there was a likelihood that granite stone was not a base mineral that fell within the definition in the act.
The judge’s view was that granite stone fell within the definition of a base mineral and the defendants were therefore undertaking a mining operation requiring a lease or licence under the act. The court further held that the defendants held a bogus land grant from the chief. It also found that under s 2 of the Mineral Rights Act the right to minerals in any land were vested in the "Basotho Nation". The judge concluded that the case was not one between landlord and tenant but between landlord (or landowner) and squatter in a situation governed by a unique and unusual land law. Accordingly, a summary judgment was entered for the plaintiff as prayed.
Letsoela and Another v Letsoela (CIV/A/17/81) (CIV/A/17/81) [1983] LSCA 80 (02 September 1983); EL Index Injunction Injuctions and interdicts Civil Remedies Plants, forests and forestry (flora) Flora and fauna Environmental law African customary law and rights of indigenous peoples Human and environmental rights Environmental lawMatsoso v Khasoane (CIV/A/3/83) (CIV/A/3/83) [1983] LSHC 63 (16 December 1983); EL Index Private prosecutions Criminal offences in environmental law Environmental law African customary law and rights of indigenous peoples Human and environmental rights Environmental law Intergenerational and intra-generational equity Concepts and principles Environmental lawThis matter dealt with an appeal for a decision taken by the Magistrate’s Court to set aside the Local Court’s decision to absolve from the matter about the ownership of a certain piece of arable land.
It was the appellant’s case that while he was out of the country the chieftainship had deprived him of the land and reallocated it to the respondent who since used it. The respondent argued that the chief had rightly allocated the land to him and that the appellant had never been an occupant of said land. The appellant contended that a former directive issued by the court to make a determination of the ownership of the land when a dispute about the ownership arose before, had not been fulfilled and therefore the land would belong to him by default, as he had inherited it.
The High Court found that the issue was never resolved because the chieftainess could not confront the appellant with either of the two tenants whom he had given permission to stay on the land or the witness to the inheritance. Therefore, the appropriateness of the reallocation would have to be determined by senior chiefs before it could be brought to a competent court of law which was the Central Court and not the Local Court. The courts of law had, therefore, no jurisdiction on the matter before it had first been exhausted by the chieftainship in accordance with the Land Act of 1973 and the appeal was thus dismissed.
S v Makanda (S.C. 119/83 Crim. Appeal No. 305/83) [1983] ZWSC 119 (01 November 1983); EL Index Procedural Fairness Justice and fairness Civil Procedure Minerals, oil and gas Minerals and energy Environmental lawThe court considered an appeal against the conviction and sentence of the appellant. The appellant had been convicted and sentenced for wrongfully, and unlawfully possessing 269 grains of concentrates containing gold, valued at $1 896,23 while not being the holder of a licence or permit, and not being the employee of any permit or licence holder, in contravention of s 3 of the Gold Trade Act.
In considering the evidence, the court noted that a detective constable jumped over the fence towards the back of the house and saw the appellant (who had a smelting pot in his hand) and another person. The constable succeeded in grabbing a plastic bag protruding from the appellant's pocket as he ran through a gate, dropping two gold stones in the process. The appellant was later arrested, giving a warned and cautioned statement, in the presence of his legal practitioner.
The court upheld that although the statement made it very clear that the appellant knew that gold was being smelted in his workshop, his defence was that he was unaware of that fact until the police were about to come on the scene. This explanation might have raised a modicum of doubt but since it had been confirmed some months later in the presence of the appellant's legal representative, it was inherently improbable.
The court found that on that state of the evidence, it was quite clear that the conviction was fully justified on the facts and the appeal was thus dismissed.
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