Farlam rejects Marikana postponement bid

An application to postpone the public hearings of the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, brought by Dali Mpofu, was rejected on Monday morning.

 

Commission chairman retired judge Ian Farlam ruled that the continuation of the public hearings was not unfair to the miners wounded and arrested during the strike-related unrest at Marikana last year. Mpofu, for miners wounded and arrested during the labour unrest, filed an application for the postponement while he sought funding for himself and his team. He has been to the high court and the Constitutional Court to try to get the State to fund his team. Both courts have dismissed his application. Mpofu will appeal the matter in the high court later this month.

 

Farlam heard oral argument on the postponement application on Friday. The justice department and two other parties involved in the commission opposed the application.The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people during strike-related unrest at Lonmin's platinum mining operations at Marikana, near Rustenburg in the North West last year.Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, on August 16, 2012 while trying to disperse them.Ten people, including two policemen and two security officers, were killed in the preceding week.

                 

-Sapa