Monyepao v Ledwaba and Others (No. 2)

The appeal before the Supreme Court of Appeal arose from litigation in the Limpopo Division of the High Court. After deciding the merits of the appeal in an earlier judgment, the SCA issued a provisional order dealing solely with the costs relating to the appeal record. The record filed consisted of 544 pages, of which only 147 pages were relevant to the appeal. The remainder comprised irrelevant material such as transcripts of argument in applications for leave to appeal, practice notes and heads of argument from the court below. Because of this excessive and defective record, the SCA provisionally ordered that no party’s legal representatives could charge fees or disbursements for perusing the irrelevant portions of the record, and invited representations from the parties as to why this order should not be made final. Only the first respondent made representations; the appellant did not.

Paragraph 3.1 of the provisional order granted on 27 May 2020 was made final, with the effect that no attorney or correspondent attorney for either party may levy fees or disbursements, on any basis, for perusing any part of the appeal record other than the specified relevant pages.

The case underscores the Supreme Court of Appeal’s strict approach to compliance with appellate rules and its intolerance of bloated and irrelevant records. It affirms the court’s power to penalise legal representatives through adverse costs consequences for including unnecessary material, reinforcing professional responsibility and efficiency in appellate litigation.