EFF and Malema must pay AfriForum another R109 000 to prevent seizure of assets

AfriForum placed the EFF and Julius Malema on terms to pay a further R109 098,30 before this coming Friday for an outstanding order as to costs. Should the money not be paid by then, AfriForum will start a process again to seize the EFF’s assets. This money pertains to the order as to costs which AfriForum obtained against the EFF and Malema on 14 November 2018 after the EFF and Malema’s attempt to obtain an urgent court order – to prevent AfriForum from removing the EFF’s property and auctioning it off – failed. This legal bill has since been taxed and therefore AfriForum can now enforce the payment thereof.

The order as to costs which AfriForum obtained on 18 November 2018 is one of five orders that the organisation has obtained against Malema and the EFF to date. Of the five cost orders Malema and the EFF have paid two, amounting to R235 000. With the payment of this enforceable third order two more orders will be outstanding. The enforcement of last mentioned is being held back because one must still be taxed and the EFF appealed against another one. It is estimated that the total of the five orders as to cost amounts to about R550 000.

Kallie Kriel, CEO of AfriForum, will apply Malema and the EFF’s payments for court opposition against attempts to amend the country’s Constitution to make expropriation without compensation possible.

“We will fight Malema and the EFF with their own money,” says Kriel.

The five cost orders in question stem from a court battle since March 2017, where AfriForum was granted an interdict with cost which prohibited them from inciting people to illegally occupy or trespass on land. The Northern Gauteng High Court granted AfriForum’s interdict with cost. Malema and the EFF then brought an application to have the interdict set aside, which would have been heard on 12 September 2017. However, the court had to postpone the case after Malema and the EFF submitted their heads of argument in their own case too late. The judge subsequently granted a punitive cost order against Malema and the EFF. When the case resumed on 18 February 2018, Malema and the EFF’s legal representatives failed to appear and the case was settled in AfriForum’s favour and a further cost order issued against Malema and the EFF.

On 14 November 2018 the other two cost orders against Malema and the EFF were issued in AfriForum’s favour in two separate cases in the Northern Gauteng High Court. The first order applies to a case of contempt of court, brought by AfriForum against Malema and the EFF, after Malema and the EFF continued to encourage land grabs despite a standing interdict that AfriForum had obtained to prohibit them from inciting people to occupy land. Malema and the EFF’s legal team failed to submit their heads of argument in time, which means that the case will have to be heard at a later date. With this, the EFF and Malema incurred yet another cost order against them.

In the second case, the EFF and Malema attempted to obtain an urgent court order to prevent AfriForum from removing and selling the EFF’s property at auction to recover legal costs. The court ruled that Malema and the EFF’s case was not urgent and issued a fifth cost order against Malema and the EFF.