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Shell’s planned Wild Coast offshore seismic blasts have spurred calls to oust oil, gas and mining ‘foxes’ from South Africa’s environmental henhouse. Shell’s planned Wild Coast seismic blasts have spurred calls to oust oil, gas and mining ‘foxes’ from South Africa’s environmenta.
First published in Daily Maverick 168 newspaper
The NSPCA referred the camel cruelty matter to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) but it refused to prosecute. It also ruled that the NSPCA had no right to conduct a private prosecution. The association took it to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which also knocked down the right to prosecute.
With the bit in its teeth, the NSPCA approached the Constitutional Court and the result was to change the future of animal welfare in South Africa.
The cruelty issue was parked pending a protracted legal wrangle about who had the right to prosecute. Both the NPA and SCA had blocked the NSPCA from proceeding, saying that, in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act, no juristic person was entitled to undertake a private prosecution. (A juristic person is not a natural person but is deemed in law to have such rights.)