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Chamber welcomes Labour Court setting aside mine stoppage order

AngloGold's Kopanang mine at the centre of a welcomed Labour Court judgement

AngloGold's Kopanang mine at the centre of a welcomed Labour Court judgement

15th November 2016

By: Martin Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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Full Labour Court judgement for downloading  (0.95 MB)

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The Chamber of Mines has welcomed the setting aside by the Labour Court of a Section 54 mine stoppage order that unjustifiably halted operations at AngloGold Ashanti’s Kopanang mine.

The chamber said on Tuesday that the greater clarity that the judgment provided on the limits of the powers of the Mine Health and Safety Inspectorate would be useful to both the mining industry and the inspectorate.

The chamber described the limits imposed by the judgment as being in line with the approach sought during engagements with the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

An instruction proportionate to the infraction and the risk that it poses to health and safety is what Labour Court judge André van Niekerk handed down.

He criticised the mine safety inspectorate for acting “outside of the bounds of rationality” in enforcing operational stoppage of the entire mine based in its inspection of level 44 of section 12 of the Kopanang mine, which employs only 2% of the 4 000-plus employees at the mine.

The judge used the quotation that “…one ought not to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, in granting a final suspension order in AngloGold versus DMR acting mines chief inspector Xolile Mbonambi and six others.

What is more, he added that he would have considered ordering the officials concerned to bear the legal costs in their personal capacities, had he been asked to do so.

He recalled that the same regional office had been involved in the Bert’s Bricks case, but had seemingly not heeded the High Court’s caution handed down in that case.

After the Inspector of Mines issued instructions that brought the entire mine to a standstill based on an inspection of only a tiny portion of the mine, ENSafrica’s legal team, led by Willem le Roux, obtained the final order suspending the instructions issued to AngloGold under Section 54 of the Mine Health and Safety Act.

The judge found that on the particular level inspected, no circumstances existed to conclude that the entire mine was unsafe and ruled that Section 54 instructions needed to be proportional to the potential harm that they are intended to prevent.

The commendable safety role of the inspectorate did not exempt those responsible from acting “outside of the bounds of rationality”.

The DMR had told AngloGold CEO Srinivasan Venkatakrishnan that appealing to the courts was among the channels open to it, in addition to engagement.

As a consequence, AngloGold went through the full process of appeal, part of which was taking the issue to the Labour Court, which identified the need to operate on the basis of proportionality and within the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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