- Judge Henriques ruled that Advocate Kuben Samie wrongly certified a SANRAL environmental dispute as urgent.
- The court found the matter had been unfolding for more than a year and did not justify giving respondents just one day to respond.
- Samie was ordered to personally pay the legal costs of the respondents who opposed the failed application.
The High Court in Durban has ordered Advocate Kuben Samie to personally pay legal costs after Judge J Henriques found that he abused the urgent court process by certifying a long-running environmental dispute as an emergency.
The ruling followed an urgent application brought by the Clare Estate Ratepayers Association against the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL), Base Major Construction, China State Construction Engineering Corporation (South Africa), the Base Major/CSCEC Joint Venture, eThekwini Municipality and other respondents.
The association wanted an urgent interdict to stop the alleged dumping of construction spoil into a Reservoir Hills quarry and protected wetland, arguing that continued dumping was causing irreversible environmental harm.
Court finds urgency was self-created
Judge Henriques found that this was not a new environmental crisis but a dispute that had been unfolding since 2024. Residents documented the alleged dumping for months and engaged with both municipal and provincial authorities before approaching the High Court.
Although the association argued that dumping intensified during February 2026, the court said the timeline showed a long-running dispute, not a sudden emergency that would justify bypassing the usual court process. The judge said there was no factual basis for requiring multiple respondents to answer the application within a single day.
Certificate of urgency comes under scrutiny
The judgment focused on Samie’s decision to sign the certificate of urgency, saying the matter needed immediate judicial intervention. Judge J Henriques said legal practitioners have a duty to make sure that urgent applications genuinely meet the legal standard and that opposing parties are given a fair chance to respond.
Judge Henriques said, “The signing of the certificate of urgency providing the respondents a day to respond to a complaint that had existed for at least over a year was a patent abuse of the court’s processes.”
The court also found that the founding affidavit relied on broad statements about environmental harm instead of the main facts needed to prove true urgency.
Personal costs order
Samie told the court he had acted on a pro bono basis out of a commitment to environmental justice and argued that personal cost orders could discourage lawyers from representing vulnerable communities in constitutional and environmental cases.
Judge Henriques rejected that argument, saying a practitioner’s personal conviction cannot replace the objective legal test for urgency. The judge found that Samie’s conduct was “grossly negligent, ill-advised and beyond merely an error in judgment”.
The court confirmed the rule nisi and ordered Samie to pay the respondents’ costs de bonis propriis, including their counsel’s fees on Scale B.
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