Justicia Shipena
The Supreme Court has ruled that Dr Rudie van Vuuren’s irregularity claim in a lawsuit where he is being sued for N$2.6 million could not be considered because it fell outside the approved grounds of appeal.
The court said hearing that claim would have been unfair to Expedite Aviation CC.
Van Vuuren, a medical doctor, conservationist and co-founder of the N/a’an ku sê Foundation, was challenging a High Court decision that removed his attempt to force the Expedite Aviation CC to hand over documents needed for the case.
This process is known as discovery, and it requires each side to share important documents before trial.
The lawsuit stems from a 3 October 2014 incident at Mangeti Cattle Ranch in the Tondoro Constituency in the Kavango West region when a light aircraft operated by Van Vuuren collided with the rotor blade of a stationary helicopter owned by Expedite Aviation CC.
The company sued him in 2015, saying he acted negligently and caused N$2.6 million in damage.
The Namibia Development Corporation and Stefan Michaelis were later added as third parties in the matter.
In 2022, Van Vuuren asked the High Court to order Expedite Aviation to provide the helicopter’s logbooks and log cards.
His aviation expert needed the records, but the company said the documents were sent to the United Kingdom (UK) in 2020.
The High Court allowed him to bring the application but told him to follow rule 32(9), which requires parties to first try to resolve the issue between themselves.
The court later found that the discussions Van Vuuren relied on were about a different application to dismiss the claim, not the request for documents he eventually filed.
Van Vuuren appealed, arguing that the court misapplied rule 32(9), that his Article 12 fair-trial rights were violated, and that the presiding judge read a prepared judgement.
The court then granted leave to appeal only on the rule 32(9) issue. The irregularity claim and fair-trial arguments were not included.
The Supreme Court in its recent judgement said the appeal could not go forward because the High Court’s order was procedural and not final.
It did not settle the rights of anyone in the main case. The Supreme Court judges said the High Court did not interpret rule 32(9) in a way that created an issue for appeal.
They said the court only made a factual finding that Van Vuuren’s effort under rule 32(9) applied to another application altogether. They said that getting documents and dismissing a claim are different processes.
They said the helicopter and its documents stayed in Namibia for years while the parties argued, and Van Vuuren did not fully use all the steps available to request documents before they were moved abroad.
The Supreme Court struck the appeal, confirmed the High Court’s ruling and sent the matter back to the High Court for a status hearing.
