- The Labour Court found that bringing repeated urgent applications based on the same facts was a gross abuse of the court process.
- Judge Kroon ordered that Lion’s attorneys must pay the punitive legal costs themselves out of their own pockets.
- The judgment warns that parties cannot use the urgent court roll for repeated tactical litigation.
Acting Judge PN Kroon began with unusually strong criticism of the conduct before the court, saying, “The urgent roll in the Labour Court is not to be treated as a casino.”
He continued, “A litigant who has been unsuccessful in an application for want of urgency cannot simply move from one table to another and then play again with the same hand, advancing substantially the same case, in the hope that persistence and fortune rather than merit in the form of a genuine change in facts and circumstances will yield a favourable outcome.”
Those opening words set the tone for a scathing Johannesburg Labour Court judgment against Norah Mokgadi Lion, the Chief Financial Officer at the Gauteng Department of Infrastructure Development, whose repeated urgent attempts to halt disciplinary proceedings ended in dismissal and a rare personal costs order against her attorneys.
Judge Kroon was giving reasons for an earlier ruling, after Lion had approached the Labour Court seeking an urgent interdict to stop disciplinary proceedings in December 2025. She argued that she had made a protected disclosure and that the disciplinary process amounted to an occupational detriment.
Her case was that the hearing should be halted pending the outcome of a dispute referred under Section 188A(11) of the Labour Relations Act. Judge Kroon found that neither Lion’s arguments nor the facts she relied on were new.
The same case brought again
The court found that Lion had already tried to get essentially the same urgent relief before another Labour Court judge but had failed. That earlier application was removed from the roll for lack of urgency, and Lion was ordered to pay punitive costs.
Despite that warning, Lion returned to court with what Judge Kroon said was essentially the same application, once again asking for the disciplinary hearing to be stopped.
Judge Kroon said, “What happened in this matter was that the same facts reoccurred.”
He added, “Recurring events do not turn a non-urgent matter into an urgent one. In fact, the fact that the same circumstances keep happening over time actually weakens, rather than supports, any claim of urgency.”
The court noted that Lion waited more than a year after misconduct charges were brought before launching her urgent challenge, even though the disciplinary process had already been underway for months and several witnesses had already testified. Judge Kroon held that whatever urgency Lion claimed was clearly self-created.
The judgment also found that Lion had other legal remedies available if she believed she had suffered an occupational detriment, making her urgent application even less justified.
Court finds gross abuse of process
Judge Kroon found that the repeated urgent court applications amounted to a gross abuse of process. He said the latest case was “a blatant and shameless attempt to relitigate” issues that had already been decided. The judgment makes clear that courts cannot be approached again and again with the same dispute just because a party is unhappy with the first outcome.
Judge Kroon warned that if this kind of conduct was allowed, litigants could simply keep relitigating urgency until they found a judge who ruled in their favour, undermining legal certainty and the proper administration of justice.
He described what the court faced as “one of the worst cases of forum shopping or actually judge shopping that I have ever come across.”
The court also criticised how the earlier judgment was handled in the new proceedings, pointing out that it was not properly highlighted in the founding papers and was not addressed honestly from the start.
Judge Kroon said, “There was clearly a reckless approach in bringing this application,” adding that the case was “exceptionally deserving of censure.”
Lawyers personally liable
The most striking part of the judgment was the costs order. Instead of ordering Lion to pay, Judge Kroon found that responsibility lay with her legal representatives, who had advised and pursued the litigation strategy.
He found that attorneys are not just messengers for their clients. They have a professional duty not to press ahead with abusive or hopeless cases.
Judge Kroon said, “No reasonably competent lawyer would have persisted with this application.” He concluded, “It is appropriate to make a de bonis propriis costs order against Ms Lion’s lawyers.”
This means Lion’s attorneys must personally pay the department’s legal costs out of their own pockets on an attorney and own client scale, which is one of the most severe costs orders a court can make.
In conclusion, Judge Kroon said, “Sooner or later, litigation must come to an end.”
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