The Cape Town high court has slammed the brakes on a serial litigator who has for five years unsuccessfully sued a municipality on the Garden Route.
The court declared Thabang Motjamela a vexatious litigant on Monday after George municipality complained about being saddled with a barrage of disputes and lawsuits dating back to 2018.
The conflict began that year when Motjamela and 27 other employees took the municipality to the South African Local Government Bargaining Council’s (SALGBC) provincial division, demanding permanent employment. While others abandoned the case, Motjamela persisted. The arbitrator ruled that he had been employed under a fixed-term Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) contract and dismissed the dispute. From there, the litigation only escalated.
In December 2023, Motjamela approached the labour court in Cape Town to have the ruling reviewed and set aside, but that case was dismissed in February 2024. He then turned to the labour appeal court, which rejected his petition for leave to appeal. Undeterred, he took the matter to the Constitutional Court, which dismissed his application “for lack of prospects of success” in July last year. He then filed a rescission application.
“As at the date of the hearing of this application, the outcome of the rescission application was not known to the municipality,” the judgment reads.
In the meantime, in 2020, Motjamela referred an unfair discrimination dispute to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA). Two years earlier, the municipality had advertised eight posts for water distribution assistants. At the time, Motjamela was employed under a fixed-term EPWP contract.
“Due to financial challenges, the [municipality] froze the eight posts, and the recruitment process was put on hold,” reads the judgment.
“In 2020, the [municipality] could only proceed with five of the eight posts. The posts were re-advertised. At that time, the EPWP contract under which [Motjamela] worked had ended. [He] applied and was not shortlisted for practical assessments and was not employed in any of those posts. The basis for the referral was that [he] believed that as he was shortlisted in 2018, he should have been shortlisted in 2020, and that he was discriminated against as he had previously referred a dispute against the municipality to the SALGBC.”
Motjamela’s case was dismissed, and the commissioner labelled his referral “vexatious”. This sparked yet another wave of court applications to review and overturn the decision. Legal Aid South Africa and the South African Legal Aid Workshop both declined to represent him, citing “poor prospects of success”.
A day after the CCMA dismissal, he filed an urgent application to suspend a rule requiring the submission of hearing transcripts. His failure to provide the transcripts between 2021 and 2024 was one of the reasons his review application lapsed. It was also among the grounds cited in opposition to reinstating the matter.
That setback did not stop Motjamela. On the same day, he filed an application for the review of the reinstatement order. On December 3 2024, he requested that the then acting judge president intervene, expressing “displeasure” at what he termed the poor service of the labour court in Cape Town.
“He expressed the view that the labour court’s actions were clear that they were working with the municipality to criticise his application as he was a young black applicant and that it showed racism,” the judgment notes.
Motjamela accused a judge of “bias, incompetence and racism” and objected to the judge presiding over his case. The judge president did not yield, and the litigation dragged on. At one point, Motjamela demanded R65m from the municipality — a claim that was summarily dismissed.
Throughout his protracted legal battles, Motjamela represented himself. Legal Aid South Africa had advised him in writing on at least three occasions that his case had no reasonable prospect of success.
Judge Daniel Thulare, who presided over the matter, said he had no choice but to act.
“I would be failing in my duty not only towards the functioning of the courts but also [the municipality] and its employees, to court support services, including registrars and secretaries of the courts, as well as almost all judges, except for a few who had occasion to deal with [Motjamela’s] matters, if I do not give due attention to his tendency to send emails to a multitude of recipients,” Thulare said.
“It is one thing to send correspondence as a follow-up or to address a pressing issue by email with the other side and/or court support services. But this is one matter where I am convinced that if [Motjamela’s] parents were to know what he was up to, the Basotho elders’ immediate reaction would be that his laptop be taken away or that he be denied internet access altogether until a family meeting is called.”
Thulare said Motjamela bore a surname belonging to a “very respected and respectable Basotho clan”, which means “one who ensures or defends justice”.
Yet, he said, Motjamela’s behaviour had brought disrepute to that name.
“In various emails sent to the [municipality’s] employees, including its attorneys, advocates, court managers, registrars and judges’ secretaries, the respondent has made various allegations against most of them, including exploitation, incompetence, corruption, bias, sabotage, racism, collusion, discrimination, fraud, human rights violations and abuse of power,” he said.
Thulare said the adverse comments were also made against judges. “There should be a boundary, even when expressing displeasure.”
He said every litigant is presumed sane unless proven otherwise.
“This presumption of sanity is a legal principle that assumes that an individual who initiates or is involved in legal proceedings is sane until proven otherwise,” he said.
Thulare ruled that Motjamela may not institute any legal proceedings in any court without prior permission from that court or a judge. He also ordered that the ruling be sent to the labour court and be published in the Government Gazette. Should Motjamela persist in making defamatory claims, the municipality may return to court to seek further relief.
Motjamela was ordered to pay legal costs.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.