Prominent Eastern Cape attorney Dumisani Tabata’s R500,000 defamation lawsuit against Johannesburg lawyer Themba Langa may have become at least financially academic after Langa was recently sequestrated.
But, although Langa may now not be in a position to cough up money if the Grahamstown high court finds against him, Tabata will pursue the matter.
He remains determined the courts should confirm he had been defamed when Langa falsely suggested that he had “leaned” on two judges in a bid to get a favourable ruling in the Siyenza toilet tender debacle.
Tabata and his law firm Smith Tabata Inc are suing Langa for R500,000 for reputational damages they say they suffered when Langa in 2015 wrote a letter of “complaint” about Tabata to then Eastern Cape Judge President Themba Sangoni. In the letter, written three days before the Siyenza case was due to be argued in the East London high court, Langa suggests he had information that Tabata had attempted to lean on two judges to get a favourable ruling for the Amathole District Municipality in its case against Siyenza...