Pretoria - In A strong message sent to people who persistently run to the courts launching ill-founded applications, Acting Judge PS van Zyl declared a would-be member of the National Freedom Party a vexatious litigant.
This means the person in future has to first obtain prior permission from the courts before he can institute legal proceedings against anyone.
Ahmed Emam, parliamentary leader of the NFP and a member of the interim national executive committee of that party, turned to the Western Cape High Court as he felt that Granville Carlson’s conduct over recent years has necessitated the application to stop him from persistently launching and continuing with ill-founded, irresponsible and vexatious litigation.
Not only has Carlson been litigating against Emam, but also against other parties such as the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, and the Minister of Police.
The court said the Vexatious Proceedings Act, which is not lightly evoked by the courts, puts a stop to the persistent and ungrounded institution of legal proceedings by allowing a court to screen (as opposed to absolute barring) a person who has “persistently and without any reasonable grounds” instituted legal proceedings.
The screening mechanism is necessary to protect the interest of the victims of the vexatious litigant who have repeatedly been subject to costs, harassment and embarrassment of unmeritorious litigation, and the public interest. This is so that the functioning of the courts and the administration of justice should proceed unimpeded by the clog of groundless proceedings.
Acting Judge PS van Zyl said Carlson commenced a dedicated campaign of litigation against Emam as a result of his belief that he was deliberately barring him from becoming a member of the National Freedom Party.
Emam was initially willing to allow Carlson to become involved in the party, but he subsequently discovered that Carlson had a criminal record and served jail time for a serious offence. The party’s constitution didn’t allow for membership under these circumstances.
Carlson has, meanwhile, been, what was described by the court as “ruthless in pursuit of what he perceives to be justice”. He has taken formal steps or instituted litigation in a variety of forums.
The fact that none of his applications, charges and complaints have thus far been successful, and that the proceedings instituted all suffer from serious defects, did not deter him from pursuing the serial litigation.
His litigation included a R300 million damages claim against Emam for alleged defamation.
Judge van Zyl said Carlson had been publicly outspoken about this claim. He had, for example, written to Emam’s secretary at Parliament in which he offered her R1m if she testified against her principal.
The court noted that Carlson has attempted to convince Emam to settle the claim by paying him R120m, with R10m as a down payment.
In a letter to Emam’s lawyer, Carlson said: “I’m more than willing to try and fix our relationship if your client is willing to meet me halfway.”
On two occasions, Carlson launched urgent applications against Emam as he believed the latter lied to the court in his plea to the damages claim. Both urgent applications were struck off the roll.
Several more applications followed, which were all unsuccessful.
He also instituted proceedings against the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, claiming damages in the sum of R360m resulting from what he said was his unlawful detention for 14 months.
He claimed that during his incarceration and on his birthday, he witnessed the murder of a fellow detainee. Carlson said he would always be reminded of a “bloody birthday.”
He acted in person during his plethora of legal applications, despite having been urged by two judges not to continue to do so, but rather to obtain legal representation.
In opposing the application to be declared a vexatious litigant, Carlson said that this was “a classical David versus Goliath, the privileged versus the unprivileged, the poor versus the rich, the state versus the people” case.
Judge van Zyl commented that if one looked at everything holistically, there could be no doubt that Carlson’s conduct qualified as conduct contemplated in the Vexatious Act.
He referred to the Chinese proverb that “the tallest tree always experiences the strongest winds”, and said Emam should endure public criticism to some degree. But what Carlson did overstepped the mark, the judge said.
In declaring him a vexatious litigant, the judge also ordered that a copy of this order had to be published in the Government Gazette.
Pretoria News