Let the legal battles begin...

The revised Mining Charter, which has caused consternation across the sector, is dissected in a series of analyses in Business Day and other media outlets, including in articles by both Minerals Affairs Minister Mosebenzi Zwane and the DA’s mining spokesperson James Lorimer, notes Legalbrief. The one certainty about the new charter is that it is bound to be tied up in the courts for a long time because the government and the Minister are profoundly and deeply compromised. This is a point made by financial analyst and editor Stuart Theobald in Business Day. He makes the point that anyone taking administrative action has a constitutional requirement to be free from bias, and, he says, there is no way the Minister meets that standard. His capture by the Guptas means everything he does is now subject to question. The charter will be held up in court for a long time on the question of whether it meets legal standards for administrative action. This is not the only legal hurdle; the charter also contains other legal absurdities such as the requirement to pay 1% of annual turnover to black holders of 30% of the company, in complete violation of the Companies Act’s requirement for shareholders to have equal rights. Noting that within hours of the charter’s appearance, the Chamber of Mines had announced it would apply to have the charter interdicted, Theobald says this continues the decidedly litigious stance the industry has taken towards government, flowing from a calculation that hostility gets better results than trying to engage diplomatically. Zwane is likely to find himself with few allies in the battles ahead. Organised labour is well aware that mines are battling to survive as it is. The governing ANC is well aware of the political consequences of tens of thousands of people, with hundreds of thousands of dependants, being added to already outrageous unemployment figures. What we should ask, suggests Theobald, is how a man like Zwane was able to get himself into such a position. And the answer is clearly the Guptas.