Time to make 'no merit' litigators pay – judge

Public servants and leaders at state-owned entities who pursue legal cases that have no merit or go against sound legal advice should be made to pay the costs from their own pocket. This, notes a Mail & Guardian report, is according to tax ombud and former Gauteng Judge President Bernard Ngoepe, who raised his personal concerns about the way ‘tax is being misused in the country’. Were this to become common practice, it could leave high profile office bearers, such as SABC chief Hlaudi Motsoeneng and President Jacob Zuma, on the hook for millions in legal fees, notes the report. ‘I have become concerned when people who are charged with the duty to run public institutions … choose to engage in unnecessary litigation, even where their cases are without merit and even where what they are pursuing is patently against the Constitution,’ Ngoepe said. ‘My view is that they do so because they know that, even if they lose, they don’t pay costs out of their own pocket,’ he said, without specific reference to any individuals. He called on litigants to ask the courts to make officials pay the costs personally when finding against them, rather than rely on the taxpayer to foot the bill. But Ngoepe stressed that he sympathised with those officials who act in good faith or on the basis of sound legal advice.