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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The applicants sought two interdicts restraining the first to fourth respondents from noise pollution through their timber business operations on weekdays between 6.00 pm and 8.00 am on weekdays, any time over weekends and on public holidays; and another interdict in requiring the respondents to limit "any noise generated by their operations”.
The court found that the applicants had a clear right to go about their business without the interference of noise unreasonably caused by the respondents. It noted that the respondents’ figures proved that traffic past the applicant’s premises had increased. Expert evidence also revealed that the noise levels were too high at night.
The respondents claimed that the applicants voluntarily assumed the risk by going to the noise. The court noted that the applicants had decided to expand their cottages 20 metres from a public road without adequate noise insulation and found the defence to be partly convincing.
The court held that the co-existence of the timber and the tourism industry in the area required both parties to give and take. The first interdict was granted partly. The court gave an order prohibiting first to fourth respondents from engaging in the noise generating operations from 8.00 pm to 8.00 am on Mondays to Fridays and after 2.00 pm on Saturdays until 8.00 am on Mondays. The restraint on public holidays was held to be unreasonable.
The second interdict was not granted for being too general and failing to specifically state what the respondents would be refrained from.