- The South African government has lost its appeal against a North Gauteng High Court ruling that instructed Eskom to exempt public institutions from load shedding.
- Eskom, the government and Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramakgopa’s, lodged the leave to appeal against the load shedding judgment.
- Bizarrely, the cabinet welcomed the appeal. Read more
Several political parties and other organisations lodged a complaint against Eskom, calling for schools, hospitals, and police stations to be spared the brunt of load shedding last year. The high court found that load shedding constituted an infringement of constitutional rights and gave the Minister of Public Enterprises 60 days to ensure that public health facilities, schools and police stations are exempted from power outages or provide generators. Read more.
The country’s Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramakgopa, then stepped in to represent the Minister of Public Enterprises but his ministry has no authority to procure generation capacity. Read more
The full bench of the court comprising judges Norman Davis, Colleen Collis and Jabulani Stanley Nyathi handed down the judgment on Thursday.
Court rules no prospect of success
“It is further trite that, even in matters of public interest, the prospects of success on appeal or, in this case, the lack thereof, remains a weighty factor. We find that, in the circumstances of this case, there are insufficient “compelling reasons” to warrant the granting of leave to appeal,” the court ruled.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
