CHAMBER OF MINES APPLIES TO HIGH COURT FOR URGENT INTERDICT TO PREVENT
IMPLEMENTATION OF DMR’S CHARTER
Johannesburg, 26 June 2017: The Chamber of Mines today applied to the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, for an urgent interdict to prevent the implementation of the Reviewed Mining Charter, as published by the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) on Thursday, 15 June. An application to have the Reviewed Mining Charter reviewed in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) will follow in due course.
The application notes that the Chamber and its members are fully committed to the transformational objectives of the MPRDA. However, they are opposed to the DMR’s Mining Charter as it “attempts to subvert those objectives by the unlawful publication of instruments which purport to give effect to such objectives but in fact undermine them.” It further notes that should the DMR’s charter be implemented in its current form, it will “destroy the very industry whose survival is necessary to give effect to the objects of the MPRDA.”
The application further argues that the publication of the 2017 Charter was so obviously beyond the powers of the Minister and that, in publishing the 2017 Charter, the Minister has purported to exercise powers which reside exclusively with Parliament, which he has sought to usurp.
The Chamber’s application further notes that the DMR’s 2017 Charter is “so confusing and confused, and so contradictory in its core provisions, that not only are the mining companies who are supposedly obliged to comply with the 2017 Charter perplexed as to what they are required to do, but legal experts themselves are confused and find themselves unable to provide clear advice to their mining and investment clients as to the meaning and effect of the 2017 Charter.”