[DEBATE] : (Fwd) SA reparations back in NY courts tomorrow

[Patrick Bond]

(Why can't Mabandla and Dlamini-Zuma resign with the others, so the new 
team in Pretoria can line up with its constituents - instead of with 
Washington, London and Berlin on this?)

23 September 2008
Apartheid class action group in US court again

Ernest Mabuza

Legal Affairs Correspondent

THE Khulumani Support Group would hold pickets in three provinces on 
Thursday to coincide with the reopening of its long-running lawsuit in 
the New York District Court, the group’s media advocacy co-ordinator, 
advocate Sipho Mantula, said yesterday.

The group filed a lawsuit in November 2002 in New York against 23 
corporations and banks on the basis that they had aided and abetted the 
apartheid government in gross human rights violations. The lawsuit was 
filed on behalf of 87 people against multinational companies including 
BP, DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Rheinmetall, Shell and Total.

Judge John Sprizzo dismissed the suit in November 2004, saying that 
forcing companies to pay reparations would hurt foreign investment in SA.

However, Khulumani lodged an appeal with the US Second Circuit Court of 
Appeals. The court ruled last year that the Alien Tort Claims Act 
provided jurisdiction for the case to be heard.

The corporations filed a motion in November last year to stay that 
decision , pending their petition to the US Supreme Court. In May this 
year, that court ruled that it lacked the necessary quorum of six 
justices to issue an opinion.

In law, when the Supreme Court lacks a quorum, the lower court ruling is 
affirmed. The case will return to the District Court on Thursday and, 
according to Mantula, will set the trial date.

Mantula said the matter included four categories of gross human rights 
violations, including disappearances, arbitrary and prolonged detentions 
without trial, assault and injury, and extrajudicial killings.