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Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has lodged an urgent interdict with the Johannesburg High Court against the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) and Altech, to prevent the latter from gaining an electronic communications network services licence.
Papers were filed on Friday and the two respondents had until 10am this morning to reply with their own affidavits. The minister wants the interdict to be heard by 28 October.
This is an unusual step for Matsepe-Casaburri, as it is the first time under the present constitution that a ministry has taken an independent regulator to court.
Matsepe-Casaburri wants the court to declare ICASA may not issue Altech with an individual-electronic communications network service (i-ECNS) licence while she appeals another High Court judgment that found the communications group was entitled to such a licence.
She states that if every value-added network service operator were to be issued an ECNS licence, it would devalue the licence held by Neotel. The second national operator paid R100 million for its licence.
While ICASA opted not to appeal that judgment, Matsepe-Casaburri decided she had to appeal, otherwise it places the policy of “managed liberalisation” in jeopardy. She also claims the judgment blurs the lines between the executive and the judicial arms of government.
“This means the issue has now become a bare-knuckle fight,” says Dominic Cull, a lawyer with Elllipsis. Cull, while not directly involved in this matter, has represented the Wireless Applications Providers Association in a similar motion against Matsepe-Casaburri.
Not ICASA's fight
ICASA spokesperson Sekgoela Sekgoela says the regulator would not oppose the minister's urgent appeal, because she is asking for clarification on whether ICASA can go ahead and issue i-ECNS licences to value-added network services.
“This is not really our fight. If the High Court orders that, while the minister's appeal is being heard that we must issue licences, then we will have to do so. If the court says the judgment of the earlier decision is suspended, then we have to stop the conversion process,” he says.
Matsepe-Casaburri states in her affidavit that Altech has written a letter to ICASA saying it is still entitled to its licence, even though she is appealing the initial judgment.
Altech CEO Craig Venter has gone on record saying he believes his group is entitled to the licence, even though there is an appeal.
Tyrone Reis, Altech's group legal manager, says: “We are concerned that ICASA could be forced to stop issuing the licence and we are preparing our papers.”
He notes that the minister's intentions were made clear in the press release she issued on 19 September. In the release, Matsepe-Casaburri stated she wanted the licence conversion process stopped and that she would institute a process of amending the Electronic Communications Act.
Crisp intentions
Lawyers say it is a well known legal tactic by government to appeal a court ruling it does not like and then amend the affected legislation in the hopes it is passed before the issue can be finalised, and then say the courts do not have to rule as circumstances have overtaken the matter.
The leave to appeal the September High Court ruling, which found in favour of Altech's stance that value-added network services be allowed to build their own networks, is set to be heard in the Pretoria High Court, on 30 October.
Suzanne Vos, communications spokesperson for the Inkatha Freedom Party, says the latest turn of events shows the minister must detail what she actually means by “managed liberalisation”.
“For too long this so-called policy has left us with high telecommunications costs and now she must crisply state what her intentions are,” she says.
For the full text of Matsepe-Casaburri's affidavit, click here.
[Johannesburg, 22 July 2008] - The Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee on Intelligence will next Wednesday hold public hearings on the Intelligence Services Amendment Bill and the National Strategic Intelligence Amendment Bill that will, among other objectives, beef up the state's ability to bug the public.
The two Bills insert new definitions into existing intelligence-related laws, but also set out to create the National Communications Centre (NCC), currently an espionage unit within the National Intelligence Agency, as a separate agency.
Ministry of Intelligence legal advisor Kerensa Millard recently told Parliament 500 posts had been approved for the NCC and 300 of these were filled.
The NCC has been described as a “state-of-the-art communications monitoring section” that conducts signal and data interception – including that of cellphone calls and e-mail – in terms of the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act.
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SCO now owes Novell $2.55m -
When the SCO group began its legal battle against Linux vendors in 2003 it was hoping to receive a lot of money from the likes of IBM and Novell for alleged Unix code infringements. Instead, the exact opposite has happened, Computerworld reports. This week SCO was ordered by the US courts to pay $2.55 million to Novell for collecting Unix licensing revenue from Sun Microsystems that it wasn’t entitled to. In a 43-page decision, which was posted on the Groklaw.com website, district court judge Dale A. Kimball in Salt Lake City ruled that the money was owed to Novell under an arrangement made by SCO’s predecessor, the former Santa Cruz Operation, which later was bought by Caldera International and became The SCO Group.
Johannesburg - A 22-year-old man died in a car accident on Sunday in an Italian sports car worth millions of rands, which he had received as a gift from his parents only three weeks ago.
The accident took place at about 04:50 on Witkoppen Road, north of Johannesburg.
Three other people also died in the accident.
Brett Scott lost control of his red Lamborghini Diablo Roadster while going around a bend, presumably at high speed, crashed into another car and burnt to death in the car wreck.
Parents identify burnt body
Terry and Leslie Scott had to identify their son's burnt up body at the scene of the accident on Sunday morning.
Spokesperson of the Johannesburg metro police, Chief Superintendent Wayne Minnaar, said Brett of Boskruin, near Fourways in northern Johannesburg, lost control of the vehicle at the corner of Riverbend Road.
"The Lamborghini landed on the other side of the road where it collided with a black Volkswagen Golf belonging to Top Security.
The vehicles caught alight and both drivers burned to death in their cars," Minnaar said.
Albert Ncube, 42, was driving the Golf. His two passengers, a man and a woman whose names were not yet known, also died.
Spokesperson for Netcare911 Nick Dollman said that there had been a massive impact.
"The front wheel of the Golf was on the same level as the door handle and the car was more or less halved in size."
'So much life'
A spokesperson on behalf of the Scott family, Jean Bedou, said the family was very traumatised.
"Brett was loved by his friends and had so much life ahead of him. His family is completely stunned."
Brett was a financial advisor at a company in Cresta in Johannesburg.
Gary Ronald, spokesperson of the Automobile Association (AA), said that training played an important role when driving a super-powerful sports car like a Lamborghini.
"It's just stupid getting into a Lamborghini if you're not trained.
Leo Kok, editor of MotorBeeld, said the Diablo was not manufactured anymore but was still comparable with Lamborghini's latest models.
He added that the Diablo had a reputation as a "sometimes unpredictable" model.
It was not known which year's Brett's Diablo was but Kok estimated that the vehicle was more or less worth between R2.5m and R3.5m.
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