When you apply for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, Bloemfontein, you must comply with the following requirements.

PRINTING

If the application exceeds ten pages, print it on both sides of the page.  The page count, as mentioned earlier, includes the notice of motion, all affidavits and annexures to it, heads of arguments, practice notes, and record of appeal.

BINDING

If the application exceeds ten pages, bind it with a plastic ring binder. The documents of the appellant/applicant must have a white ring binder, and the materials of the respondent must have a blue ring binder.

PAGE COUNT RESTRICTION

The founding affidavit and the answering declarations may not exceed more than thirty pages.  The page count, as mentioned herein, includes the pages administering the commissioning of oaths.

ADDITIONAL DOCUMENT RESTRICTION

You may not add annexures to the affidavits.  Subject to the qualifications set out below, only the following pages are allowed:

  1. Judgment of Court a quo on merit;
  2. Order of the Court a quo in respect of the merits;
  3. Judgment of Court a quo that refuses leave to appeal;
  4. Order of the Court a quo that refuses leave to appeal.

Note:

  • The “orders” that are customary at the end of the judgment are not compliant with the provisions of rule 6. The Registrar of the Court a quo must issue a separate order.
  • If the written judgment is not available on the last day that you must file the appeal, the Registrar will accept the application for leave to appeal. You must then, within one month after that, file the judgment with the Registrar.  Before you can do so, you must first serve a copy of the judgment on the opposing party.
  • You may, only in exceptional circumstances, attach extracts of the record of the proceedings in the Court a quo to your application. You must set out the reasons thereof in the founding affidavit.  Alternatively, your local correspondent must address a letter to the Registrar explaining the reasons for the inclusion of the record and the failure to disclose this in the founding affidavit.  Avoid this if you can.

NO ACCEPTANCE IF ORDER REFUSING LEAVE BY COURT A QUO IS NOT AVAILABLE

If the order of the Court a quo that refuses leave to appeal is not available, the Registrar will not accept the application for leave to appeal.

NO NOTICE OF INTENTION TO OPPOSE

The rules do not provide for the delivery of a notice of intention to oppose.  The Registrar does not accept the filing of such a notice.

DIES

Dies non from 16 December to 15 January does not apply to the file of the application. But dies non does, however, apply to the file of any opposing and replying affidavit.

Calculate the days for delivery of the answering and replying affidavits from the first day after your opponent served the document you want to reply to on you.  Do not calculate the days from the date of service of the pleadings on the Registrar:  it contravenes rule 6.

In terms of Section 17 (2) (b) of Act 10 of 2013, you must apply for leave to appeal within one month from the date the Court a quo refused it.  The Act prescribes the dies for applications for leave to appeal.  Accordingly, the days are calculated as calendar days and include the day immediately after consent to appeal was declined, even if that day is a public holiday or a Saturday.

CONDONATION APPLICATION

A party must apply for condonation for the late filing of its document when

  1. You failed to file your application for leave to appeal within one calendar month;
  2. You did not file any affidavit timeously; or
  3. If the total page count of the application exceeds thirty pages

The Registrar will not accept any late application for leave to appeal without a condonation application accompanying it.

Your application for leave to appeal may contain the condonation application, in one document.  Some practitioners, however, prefer to file the condonation and the application for leave to appeal as two separate applications.

Note:

  • The Court considers the condonation application and the application for leave to appeal at the same time. The Court does not consider the condonation application first and then only at a later stage consider the main application.

INDEXING AND PAGINATION

You must number, every page, of every document, at the top of the page.

When the judges denied an application for leave to appeal, and you require the judges to reconsidered in terms of section 17(2)(f), your application must include all the affidavits of the first application. In this event, bind your further application, together with all the affidavits of the first application,  in one bundle.  You must index and paginate the bundle before you submit it with the Registrar.

Once the answering and replying affidavits in terms of section 17(2)(f) is filed, uplift it from the court file and re-index and paginate the court bundle.

Read our article on Avoid a confused judge on evidence with proper indexing and pagination to learn more on this.

We thank Ettienne Horn, Van der Merwe & Sorour Attorneys, Bloemfontein for this article.  For an Afrikaans copy of this article, click here.