The first respondent sued the applicant in the Transvaal Provincial Division for damages allegedly caused when a veld fire spread from the applicant’s land to the respondent’s farm. The land was situated outside a statutory fire control area as defined in the Forest Act 122 of 1984. Section 84 of the Act created a presumption of negligence against a landowner in respect of veld, forest or mountain fires occurring on land outside a fire control area, unless the contrary was proved. During the civil proceedings, the applicant challenged the constitutionality of section 84, arguing that the reverse onus infringed fundamental rights under the interim Constitution. The High Court referred the constitutional issue to the Constitutional Court under section 102(1) of the interim Constitution.
Section 84 of the Forest Act 122 of 1984 was declared constitutional, and the constitutional challenge was dismissed. The matter was allowed to proceed in the High Court with section 84 remaining applicable.
This case is a foundational authority in South African equality jurisprudence. It established the distinction between mere differentiation and unfair discrimination and introduced the rationality test for assessing differentiation under section 8(1) of the interim Constitution. Prinsloo v Van der Linde remains central to constitutional review of legislation that differentiates between categories of persons without implicating listed grounds of discrimination.