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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Uris Safari Lodge (Pty) Limited v Weatherly Mining Namibia Limited and Others (A 284/2013) [2014] NAHCMD 266 (11 September 2014); 
Procedural Fairness Justice and fairness Civil Procedure Civil Remedies Injunctions and interdicts Civil Remedies Role of state in relation to environment Actors in environmental law Environmental law Minerals, oil and gas Minerals and energy Environmental law EL IndexThis case concerned parties who had competing interests (one being a luxury tourist lodge and the other one was a copper mine) over the same piece of land. They were undergoing litigation, which included a pending action before another court, in which the first and second respondent were seeking the eviction of the applicant from the property which they sold to the applicant in 2002.
The court considered an application to review and set aside a decision to grant the second respondent an environmental clearance certificate, as well as an interdict restraining them from taking any further action from using the mining rights already granted.
The applicant had earlier stated that they would launch urgent proceedings once they become aware that first and second respondent intend commencing mining activities. However, subsequent communication showed that there were no imminent mining activities. On this basis, the court found that the matter was not inherently urgent, and the application was therefore struck from the roll.
Gemfarm Investments (Pty) Ltd v Trans Hex Group Ltd and Another (P I 445/2005) [2009] NAHC 24 (07 April 2009); EL Index Attribution of Costs Costs Civil Remedies Indigenous knowledge and intellectual property Actors in environmental law Environmental law Legislative Amendment Constitutional Law Constitutional Supremacy Constitutional LawThe plaintiff claimed that it was patentee and registered proprietor of an invention for the "method of, and apparatus for, underwater mining of mineral deposits known as a "pebble jetting system.” The plaintiff alleged that the defendants infringed on its patent by using integers of its invention in another invention, resulting in financial loss to the plaintiff. The defence argued that the Patents and Designs Proclamation, No. 17 of 1923 upon which the plaintiff relied for the registration of its patent had been repealed by the South African Patents Act, No 37 of 1952 and was therefore no longer in force in Namibia and that the union Act in s18 of the proclamation was to become main legislative piece for patents.
The court therefore had to decide whether the Patent proclamation was still in force and determine the legitimacy of the granting of the patent and the meaning of Union Act in the proclamation.
The court found that that the provisions of the proclamation under which the patent in issue had been granted, were not repealed or amended by the 1952 Act and were valid by virtue of Article 140(1) of the Constitution. Secondly, that the extent to which the Union Act had been applied to the law of patents in the Territory stemmed from s.5 of the Proclamation and, although it applied the Union Act to a wide range of specified matters, it did not apply to applications for the granting of patents. The matter was dismissed with costs.
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