The Durban High Court has ordered an advocate to pay legal costs from his pocket after it found that his conduct was an abuse of court process.
The Durban High Court has ordered advocate Kuben Samie to pay the legal costs of an urgent application from his own pocket after finding that he abused the court’s processes by giving respondents just one day to respond to an environmental complaint that had existed for more than a year.
The order arose from an urgent application brought by the Clare Estate Ratepayers Association (CERA) against the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) and its contractors over alleged dumping of construction spoil into a quarry in the Clare Estate and Reservoir Hills areas.
The dumping is linked to the EB Cloete interchange expansion. CERA alleged that the quarry was a wetland and formed part of the Durban Metropolitan Open Space System (D’MOSS).
According to CERA, SANRAL and the Base Major/CSCEC Joint Venture had been depositing truckloads of construction waste into the quarry since October 2024, with the dumping intensifying from February 2026.
