The South Gauteng High Court will tomorrow, Friday 28 August 2015 at 9h30 in court 11E, give a ruling in the application by the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Sonke Gender Justice (Sonke) to intervene as amici curiae (friends of the court) in Nkala and others v Harmony Gold and others, an application to certify a class of mineworkers who have contracted TB or Silicosis as a result of the failure of the gold mining industry to prevent these diseases in their mines.
If admitted, TAC and Sonke will participate in a hearing in October that will have enormous consequences for potentially hundreds of thousands of mineworkers with lung disease, the families of mineworkers who have passed away due to lung disease, the gold mining industry and the development of class action law in South Africa.
If successful in October, the mineworkers will be permitted to proceed to bring a class action seeking compensation for their occupationally acquired illness. If the court does not permit them to proceed in a class action, they will effectively be left without access to a remedy for their devastating illnesses.
The TAC and Sonke Gender Justice are hopeful that tomorrow the court will agree that they stand to make valuable contributions to this historic certification application.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Section27
Ngqabutho Mpofu
074 616 6937
mpofu@section27.org.za
Treatment Action Campaign
Lotti Rutter
081 818 8493
lotti.rutter@mail.tac.org.za
Sonke Gender Justice
Desmond Lesejane
011 339 3589 / 084 581 6306
desmond@genderjustice.org.za
