City of Cape Town v South African National Roads Authority Limited and Others

SANRAL, an organ of state, awarded a tender for the N1/N2 Winelands Paarl Highway Toll Project to Protea Parkways Consortium. The City of Cape Town instituted review proceedings under Uniform Rule 53 to challenge the tender award. SANRAL provided the Rule 53 administrative record in two parts, labelled confidential and non-confidential. A confidentiality undertaking was agreed to regulate interim access. When the City filed a supplementary founding affidavit referring to allegedly confidential material, SANRAL applied to the Western Cape High Court for extensive secrecy and redaction orders. The High Court dismissed SANRAL’s application for secrecy but nevertheless, on its own initiative, adopted the implied undertaking rule and issued declaratory and sealing orders limiting dissemination of the Rule 53 record until the review hearing. The City appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

The appeal was upheld with costs. The order of the Western Cape High Court was set aside and replaced with an order dismissing SANRAL’s secrecy application with costs, including the costs of three counsel.

The case is a leading authority on open justice in South African law. It confirms that court records, including Rule 53 administrative records, are presumptively open to the public and that secrecy is the exception requiring justification. The judgment rejects the implied undertaking rule in South African review proceedings and clarifies that Rule 62(7) does not restrict constitutional access to court records. It has wide implications for transparency, media freedom, and public interest litigation.