The high court in Pretoria has dismissed an application for the immediate release of the Marikana Commission Report.
President Jacob Zuma received the report at the end of March.
The Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union and Mzoxolo Magidiwana‚ one of the mineworkers who was injured when police shot and killed 34 miners at Lonmin’s Marikana mine on August 16 2012‚ had applied for an order directing Zuma to release the report.
Retired Judge Ian Farlam was appointed by Zuma in August 2012 to chair a commission to inquire into and make findings concerning events that unfolded in Marikana leading to the shootings.
After the report was submitted‚ constant public calls were made to Zuma to make the report public. Zuma said last month that he would release the report by June 30.
The case was argued before Judge Tuchten last Monday (June 8‚ 2015).
"What is said to render this matter so urgent that justice will not be done if the release of the report is delayed by three weeks?" Judge Tuchten said yesterday (15-06-2015).
He said he was unable to agree that the president’s decision to delay the release of the report until the end of June was irrational or was based on an improper motive.
The union had asserted that its claims for damages arising from what was done to them during the Marikana events would prescribe during August 2015.
The judge said it was not certain that prescription had indeed begun to run at all. He said if any of the affected people could show that the report was of such significance that potential claimants could not‚ without sight of the contents of the report‚ had acquired the necessary knowledge to identify debtors‚ any recourse to prescription would be defeated.
Judge Tuchten said it was impermissible to seek‚ as the miners did‚ to ground an application for information directly on the Constitution and ignore the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). "On that ground alone‚ the applicants cannot obtain the relief they seek."
He said the claim by the union was for documentary information.
"There was nothing which prevented any of those affected by the Marikana events from making a request for access to the report 15 days after it had been submitted to the president."
He said had the union and Magidiwana availed themselves of the rights under PAIA‚ the urgent application would either not have been necessary at all or would have taken a radically different form.
Addressing the community members from Marikana outside court‚ the lawyer representing Magidiwana‚ Andries Nkome‚ said there was an undertaking that the report would be released by June 30.
He said he had received instructions to go back to court to demand the release of the report if the president did not release it on June 30.