Earthlife Africa launches next round of court action

Monday 15th September 2003

Today saw the start of the next round of the legal battle to stop the PBMR from going ahead. 

Earthlife Africa - Cape Town (Earthlife) today launched a High Court application in Cape Town, seeking to review and set aside the environmental impact assessment (EIA) authorization granted to Eskom to build a demonstration module Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (PBMR) at Koeberg, Cape Town.

Earthlife is challenging the EIA authorisation as it believes that the Director General (DG) of the national Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT), Dr Chippy Olver, made his decision in a procedurally unfair manner.

Earthlife Africa has repeatedly tried to get to the Department to listen to them over the last year, asserting that their constitutional right to be heard has been violated.  Unfortunately the department refused to listen and went ahead and granted the PBMR approval on the 25th June this year.

Earthlife Africa's ability to participate in the EIA was inhibited by the fact that it was refused access to information on the economic and technical feasibility of the project, and was denied access to a feasibility review conducted by a panel of international experts.  It was also refused access to critical information dealing with the safety of this untested nuclear technology.

"Part of our problem is the substantial, critical pieces of information which we did not have access to during the EIA process" stated Liz McDaid, spokesperson for Earthlife Africa (Cape Town).
"We were not allowed access to important documents for example, to know how much it would cost to construct one demonstration plant, or to comment on them.  As it has recently come to light that one demonstration plant would cost over R10 billion, and we already know that Eskom's plan is that the South African public are to pay for this through electricity tariffs, this was a critical omission. From Earthlife Africa's perspective, these are issues that should have been addressed in the EIA "

"It seems quite a coincidence that the construction costs of one demonstration plant should only come to light after the closing date for commenting to the authorities is  past." Said Liz McDaid.

According to Earthlife Africa's lawyer, Adrian Pole of  the Legal Resources Centre,
"The grounds for challenging the decision include that Earthlife Africa's right to procedurally fair administrative decision-making was violated by the DG, and that the authorization falls to be set aside as a consequence, that
we believe that the authorization is flawed because the DG abdicated his responsibility to ensure that the proposed demonstration module PBMR is safe, and that
the DG failed to comply with mandatory and material provisions of the empowering legislation, that he took irrelevant considerations into account, that he failed to take relevant considerations into account, and that the decision was not rationally connected to the purpose of the empowering EIA legislation"

Although the court papers were lodged today, there is still a long road ahead.  The Department will have an opportunity to study Earthlife Africa's arguments and respond.  Earthlife Africa will then be able to reply to these responses and only after this procedure has been gone through, will a court date be set. 

"It is a long and tiring road but the rewards are enormous.  If we can win this court battle, then we can hopefully play a small part in ensuring that South Africa directs its considerable human and capital resources into Environmentally sound, affordable energy provision in a way that does justice to our commitment to Sustainable Development," said Liz McDaid.