Court denies miners info
Bid to release massacre probe refused
THE High Court in Pretoria dismissed an application for the immediate release of the Marikana Commission Report, which President Jacob Zuma received at the end of March.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (Amcu) and Mzoxolo Magidiwana, one of the mineworkers who was injured when police shot and killed 34 miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on August 16 2012, had applied for an order to compel Zuma to release the report.
Zuma appointed retired Judge Ian Farlam in August 2012 to head a commission of inquiry into the events and shootings at Marikana.
After the report was submitted, constant public calls were made to Zuma to make it public. Zuma said last month that he would release the report by June 30.
The case was argued before Judge Neil Tuchten on Monday last week.
“What is said to render this matter so urgent that justice will not be done if the release of the report is delayed by three weeks?” Tuchten said.
He was unable to agree that Zuma’s decision to delay the release of the report until the end of June was irrational or based on an improper motive, he said.
Tuchten said it was impermissible to seek, as the miners did, to ground an application for information directly on the constitution and ignore the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
“On that ground alone, the applicants cannot obtain the relief they seek.”
He said the claim by the union was for documentary information.
He said had Amcu and Magidiwana availed themselves of the rights under the information act, the urgent application would either not have been necessary at all or would have taken a radically different form. Lawyer Simon Hlahla, for the miners and Amcu, said the release of the report was dismissed because the applicants were not yet entitled to information in it.
“The judge says that it is information that we are not entitled to,” Hlahla said.
While the absence of an order in their favour had made the miners unhappy, they would have to wait for June 30, he said.
If Zuma did not follow through with that deadline, they would return to court, and possibly approach the Constitutional Court.
Earlier this month, Zuma’s counsel, Advocate Hilton Epstein, said the president needed until June 30 to “get to grips” with the report.