Pretoria - The Tshwane Metro Council suffered a blow when the Pretoria High Court on Thursday ordered it to put the old street names back on display.
The council turned to court for leave to appeal as it believed Judge Bill Prinsloo had erred in several aspects of his judgment when he granted AfriForum an interim order.
Among these was that the judge had heard the application as an urgent matter.
Judge Prinsloo found on Thursday that according to legal principles, issues of urgency and interim orders could not be appealed.
In his opinion, another court would not have come to a different finding, he said.
The judge remarked that AfriForum – which had applied for an order that the old and new names be displayed on road signs – stood to suffer harm if the old names were not put up again in the interim. The judge also saw no harm to the council if the signs were erected in the meantime.
AfriForum brought an application against the removal of the old street names. This was after executive mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa announced in his state of the city address in April that the six-month moratorium placed on the removal of the old names had expired.
Judge Prinsloo gave the council 60 days in which to re-erect the old names, along with the new ones.
He said on Thursday he deemed it in the interests of justice that the street name issue come to finality soon as it had been dragging on for some time.
If the council appealed against the interim ruling, it could take longer than finalising the main review application, the judge said.
By the time the appeal proceedings were concluded, the issues might be moot, he added.
Mayoral spokesman Blessing Manale said on Thursday: “The city believes the decision to grant the initial application by AfriForum – to force the city to maintain the dual names on Tshwane streets which were renamed after a thorough consultative process – to be a blurring of the separation of powers.”
Granting the application “sought to interdict the administration from implementing a decision taken by the council through a majority vote as the legislative authority”, he said.
Manale added: “It is our understanding that the pending review of the overall renaming process does not take away the rights of the city to implement its renaming policy and process. It provides for a dual display (of the old and new names) for six months, during which period AfriForum failed to lodge an appropriate official review application with the city and the courts”.
The council would pursue an appeal, Manale said.
Its senior legal team has been instructed to prepare a petition for an urgent application to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
“It is regrettable that despite recent real threats to national unity and diversity by right-wing elements in the city – that AfriForum has yet to condemn – it has found it a priority rather to delay us in our nation’s long walk to national unity and the need for telling the story of the struggles of our people,” said Manale.
AfriForum’s legal representative, Willie Spies, said there were a few days left before the time period ran out. He added that the old names should be in place by Wednesday.
“I am not sure when they will re-erect the old names, but we will keep a close watch on this. If they do not erect the old names, we will reconsider our position.”
Spies said AfriForum did not want to run to court all the time and litigate, as it would rather be looking for a solution to the problems.
The Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and the DA welcomed the court decision.
“We welcome this decision, but our main concern is that the ratepayer will foot the bill for this court action,” said FF+ councillor Phillip van Staden. The FF+ had warned the metro council against “blindly taking” a decision on the street name changes, he said.
“Unfortunately, the council failed to listen to us and now it has to pay the price. It’s time residents stood up and forced the council to pay the legal bill from its coffers.”
DA councillor Elmarie Linde said the court decision did not come as a surprise.
She said the ANC-led municipality had known what the implications were of the previous ruling, yet disregarded it.
“It is unfortunate that the court has to educate the Tshwane Metro Council on what its responsibility is with regard to a court ruling.
“Once again this is fruitless expenses – a bill to be footed by the ratepayer. The money could have been spent in a much better way.”
Pretoria News