Horn ban in place again - Molewa ready for round 4

Date: 20 June 2016 By: Isabel Venter

It is once more illegal to sell rhino horns in South Africa.

This follows an application the Department of Environmental Affairs has lodged with the Constitutional Court. This latest court action means that the moratorium on domestic trading in rhino horn will stay in place for the time being.

Environmental Affairs Minister Ms Edna Molewa confirmed last Monday (6^th) that she had filed an application for leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court. The moratorium was first challenged in court by rhino breeder Mr Johan Kruger and his Musina-based attorney Mr Hennie Erwee during 2012. During 2015, Mr John Hume, one of the country’s largest rhino breeders, also joined in the cause. Both of them argued that the moratorium had fuelled the dramatic increase in rhino poaching.

This led to the setting aside of the moratorium by the Pretoria High Court (HC) on 26 November last year, with immediate and retrospective effect. The court ruled in favour of Kruger and Hume on the basis that the government had failed to follow adequate public consultation processes before declaring the moratorium back in 2009.

Molewa immediately lodged an application to ask for leave to appeal the verdict. This application was denied, after which she approached the Supreme Court of Appeal. This application was also dismissed, in May this year, with cost.

The Constitutional Court is currently the last sliver of hope the minister is clinging to, to get the HC ruling overturned.

In the meantime, Erwee said that was high time the minister admitted defeat and quit her department’s wasteful expenditure of taxpayers’ money on frivolous court cases. When contacted for comment last Friday, Erwee confirmed that he had read through the latest application of the minister. Erwee said he was confident that the original judgment would stand, seeing as the minister’s latest application was an exact copy of all her previous applications for leave to appeal.

Last week, Minister Molewa said that no permits to trade with rhino horn and/or any derivatives or products of horn would be issued by her department until the matter was finalized by the Constitutional Court. She further also reminded the public that the HC’s judgment did not relate to the international trade in rhino horn for commercial purposes, which was still prohibited in terms of the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

All eyes will be on both CITES and Molewa during the 17^th conference of the parties, which will be held in Johannesburg from 24 September to 5 October this year.

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Isabel Venter

Isabel joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2009 as a reporter. She holds a BA Degree in Communication Sciences from the University of South Africa. Her beat is mainly crime and court reporting.

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