Durban - The family of the late Morris Fynn stand accused of contempt of court for burying the anti-apartheid activist on traditional land, in defiance of a court process they had initiated.
Now the attorney acting for the local inkosi has threatened to go to court to get an order to exhume Fynn’s remains at Nyangwini on the South Coast.
An urgent application seeking to resolve an impasse between the family and the inkosi was launched by Fynn’s 79-year-old widow, Maureen, and eldest son, Charles, in the Pietermaritzburg High Court last Friday. The case was bankrolled by MEC Nomusa Dube, it is claimed in the court papers
The matter was adjourned for one week by Judge David Ntshangase at the request of the Ingonyama Trust which wanted to place certain facts before the court.
However, the burial went ahead the next day under police guard and, it is alleged, in the presence of people who were aware of the court application.
“We are preparing an application for contempt of court and will consider an application for exhumation,” attorney Lourens de Klerk, who acts for Inkosi Bhekizizwe Luthuli, told the Mercury.
“There were press statements given at the burial that the dispute had been resolved. My client was not involved in any resolution and to say so was a lie.”
Fikisiwe Madlopha, the chief executive of the Ingonyama Trust, filed an affidavit with the court this week explaining the trust’s position, asserting that there was no “Fynn family cemetery” on the land, that Fynn was never an “occupier” of the land, as alleged by his widow in her application, and the family had no right to bury him there.
Madlopha said conducting the burial before the finalisation of the application was “a blatant disrespect of the rule of law and court process” and had “far reaching legal and social implications”.
Fynn died on August 31. His family claim a right to land at Nyangwini because the “clan” once lived there, a descendant was buried there and it was his last wish to be buried there.
They approached Luthuli for permission, but, they allege, although he initially agreed that the burial could proceed, he later said no.
Mediation had failed and they had been forced to make the urgent court application claiming a right under the KwaZulu-Natal Cemeteries and Crematoria Act.
Dube was cited as a respondent and the judge was told by the advocate for the Fynn family that she “fully supported the application”.
Luthuli opposed the application and denied he had approved the burial. He informed his attorney that there were so many police officers present on Saturday that he could do nothing to stop it.
This week, lawyers for the Fynn family advised De Klerk that they intended withdrawing the application on Friday and would pay all the legal costs. The family’s attorney, Martin Potgieter, declined to comment on Thursday and the family did not respond to messages for comment.
However, in a letter to De Klerk, Potgieter said while he had seen press reports “we have no knowledge of the circumstances and whether our client was party to the alleged contempt of court… and deny that she was”.
“We confirm our client is Mrs Fynn and the instructions with regard to the withdrawal and costs have come from her,” he said.
In a further affidavit filed with the court, Judge Jerome Ngwenya, the chairman of the Ingonyama Trust Board, said a Fynn family representative had told him about a meeting with Dube and MEC Ravi Pillay and that the family had been “introduced by a Copgta (Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs) official” to their attorneys.
“He said Cogta realised they did not have the money and that the department offered them legal representation which they would pay for.”
Lennox Mabaso, Dube’s spokesman, denied that she had played any part in the burial. “She was not there. She only heard that it had gone ahead through media reports.
“She respects the rule of law and the court process.”
He said the police had been present because of violent protests in the days before the burial. Regarding allegations that the MEC had paid for the litigation, he said there were “facts to the contrary”.
The Mercury