The three applicants were convicted in the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court on charges of murder, unlawful possession of a firearm and unlawful possession of ammunition, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Their convictions arose from a 2011 shooting in Reiger Park in which Renaldo Leeroy Booysens was killed. The key evidence implicating them came from eyewitnesses Sherwin Arries and Marlin Abrahams. After all ordinary appeal avenues were exhausted and leave to appeal refused by the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), Arries later testified in the separate trial of an alleged co-accused, Arthur Saimons, where he recanted his earlier testimony and alleged police inducement to falsely implicate the applicants. As a result of this recantation, Saimons was discharged. The applicants then sought to invoke section 17(2)(f) of the Superior Courts Act to have the SCA’s refusal of leave to appeal reconsidered on the basis that this post‑trial recantation constituted ‘exceptional circumstances’. The Acting President of the SCA dismissed the application, finding no exceptional circumstances. The applicants approached the Constitutional Court to challenge that decision.
The application for leave to appeal was dismissed. No order as to costs was made.
This case clarifies the narrow and exceptional scope of section 17(2)(f) of the Superior Courts Act and confirms that post-trial recantations, even by material witnesses, do not automatically constitute exceptional circumstances. It reinforces the principle of finality in litigation while delineating the high threshold required to reopen refusals of leave to appeal in criminal matters. The judgment also provides guidance on the extent of the duty to give reasons when exercising the section 17(2)(f) discretion.