Man fights finding by Court of Appeal on Post Office
October 23, 2009
By Roy Cokayne
The Supreme Court of Appeal is being taken to task by a man whose R60-million damages claim against the SA Post Office was dismissed on appeal.
Brian de Lacy said this week that he had submitted a document to the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) detailing 114 allegations against the judgment made in May by Judge Robert Nugent.
De Lacy and Barry Beadon were members of Cornastone e-Commerce Services, which failed to win a tender for a pension payout system, and were ceded the claim against the Post Office by the High Court.
The complaint alleges, among other things, that the Appeal Court judgment was grossly incompetent and made an incorrect finding. It said the judgment repeatedly did not consider all the evidence contained in the High Court record and in certain instances there was no evidence in the record to support the findings.
De Lacy said the JSC was considering the complaint this week. JSC spokesman Marumo Moerane was unavailable for comment.
Kedibone Molopyane, a Post Office spokesperson, said the Post Office's legal department had no knowledge of the JSC matter and could therefore not comment on it.
Judge Nugent, in a written response to a JSC request for comment on the complaint, said on behalf of both him and his Supreme Court of Appeal colleagues who had heard the matter that it was generally accepted judicial practice not to engage in debate with a litigant on the merits of a case that had been finalised.
The original claims against the Post Office by De Lacy and Beadon totalled more than R400m and related to an open tender for a biometric payment system for pension payouts in the North West.
De Lacy said they were informed on the day of the Supreme Court of Appeal hearing that they would need to prove that there had been dishonest or fraudulent behaviour by one or more Post Office employees.
In the judgment handed down in the Gauteng North High Court in December 2007, Judge Willie Hartzenberg found that dishonesty, corruption and fraud had plagued the Post Office tender.
The Post Office appealed the High Court finding.
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