Green Scorpions lose Tormin search-and-seizure case

Australian mining company Mineral Sands Resources (MSR) has emerged the winner from its High Court review application relating to a search-and-seizure operation at its Tormin mine on the West Coast last year. A GroundUp report says the operation was authorised under a warrant issued by Vredendal Magistrate CS Kroutz and conducted by government environmental officials led by the Green Scorpions in September. It followed complaints of alleged environmental mismanagement and illegalities in mining operations to extract heavy minerals from the beach. MSR brought a review application in the Western Cape High Court challenging the validity of the warrant. Judge Owen Rogers ruled that the warrant was indeed invalid and set it aside. Awarding costs to MSR, he said it had achieved ‘substantial success’ in its application. However, the judge also made it clear that his decision did not preclude a future search-and-seizure operation in respect of the same complaints, if the warrant was properly authorised. The judge said there had been no ‘egregious’ conduct in the execution of the warrant, and he refused MSR’s application for evidence seized during the operation to be destroyed. Instead, notes the report, he issued a preservation order, in terms of which one full copy of all the evidence seized must be made and held under seal by the Registrar of the High Court until a possible criminal case against MSR in respect of the charges has been concluded or the NPA formally declines to prosecute.