It is that one place where you would expect your lawyer to go the very moment you find that your case was not decided in your favour.
In reality many of us in the legal fraternity have brought appeals to our local divisions of the High Court. Some of us have even gone through with them to finalise them. I can remember how in 2016 the costs of such appeals were estimated at R 20 000 at the outset and then- when you get faced with opposition- you realise that the costs will even go beyond R 60 000 if you want to see it through to the very end.
Recently- after 17 years of being in this profession- I have ended up in the Court that is approached when your appeal or your application for leave to appeal in your local division has failed.
The Supreme Court of Appeal is situated in Bloemfontein. It has a set of rules and practice directives with which few attorneys outside of Bloemfontein are familiar. In the past only Attorneys and Advocates that were specifically given right of appearance in this Court were allowed to appear in this Court. With the implementation of the Legal Practice Act 28 of 2014, however, all admitted Legal Practitioners (be they Advocates or Attorneys) now have right of appearance here.
Having the right to appear does not automatically make one competent to institute and conduct proceedings in a Court, however. This is where the Bloemfontein correspondent comes in. Correspondent Attorneys are appointed in instances where you have to litigate in a Court that is situated more than 15 kilometers away from you. They are required by law to provide an address within the 15km radius where documents can be delivered to you. They also help with the service and filing of papers on your opponents. In the case of the SCA your correspondent also has to be somebody who is familiar with the rules and procedures of this extraordinary Court and capable of helping you get your matter ready for hearing.
Getting the matter ready for hearing in this court involves indexing and paginating the papers in a certain way, binding them in a set manner and having 7 copies of such bundles available. For this we have appointed a specialist- in addition to our correspondent- who charges R 35 000.00 for this service.
How much does the correspondent charge?
Well... If you are used to seeing legal costs you expect unopposed matters to cost you in the range of
R 8 000 or so. Your correspondent might charge you about for all the receipt and delivery of documents that they get to do. The Bloemfontein correspondent, however, holds the key to getting your documents accepted by the Court and you being awarded a date for hearing. It involves indexing and paginating, the writing and handing in of letters in a specific form and meetings in person with Registrars. The first invoice from our correspondent for all this was R 80 000.00!
After having them concede that they had no reason to peruse the documents (because yes- if you do not expressly tell them NOT to read your documents they will read them and charge you for that) we managed to get their bill down to R 50 000.
As you can expect- the clients grumbled even about this discounted price.
Promoting access to the Courts to all in the face of high legal costs has been an issue with which I have been battling since my first day in private practice. I know very well that your average salary earner also needs to avail him/ herself of the Courts, but that they cannot be reasonably expected to pay a deposit of R 20 000 before they get assisted. In the case of the SCA one needs to prepare for costs exceeding
R 100 000.00.
Familiarity and the fact that I often do not involve Advocates in my matters have me accepting arrangements for payments in installments, but nobody can afford to have these correspondents work on credit only to have the client disappear when they find that the Court did not find in their favour.
So- if you want to appeal to the SCA- have at least R 100 000 ready. It simply is that expensive...
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