High court dismissed Young African appeal case

Young African's urgent application for them to remain in the league - while their case is being heard - has been struck off the court roll with costs. High Court judge Claudia Claasen removed the case from the roll because the applicant Young African and their lawyers did not appoint the deputy sheriff to summon all respondents to court. Instead, Young African's lawyers sent out details via email, which is not considered commonly acceptable practice. Only NPL representatives and African Stars were present from the 22 respondents that should have been summoned to court today. In this scenario, Young African were represented by Advocate Thabang Phatela from Murorua and Associates, who argued that in this era the e-mail is one of the most reliable tools to communicate. Phatela also told the court administrators that they used the same communication tool to get in touch with their members. Representing the Namibia Premier League was Mercy Kuzeeko who instructed advocate Gerson Narib, while African Stars were represented by Norman Tjombe. Both lawyers said the method used to serve the respondent with e-mails is not correct and is disallowed by law. They also told the court that some of the respondents were not served, hence their absence from the court today. Judge Claasen took 30 minutes to study the documents before she struck the case off the roll. The judge agreed with both Tjombe and Narib that the process off serving the respondents was not correct. Thus the case was removed from the roll, due to those technicalities before the merits of the case were heard. This is considered to be a big blow for Young African, but it doesn't end there. The court also told the Gobabis-based team to pay the costs of the respondents. Young African's urgent application for them to remain in the league - while their case is being heard - has been struck off the court roll with costs. High Court judge Claudia Claasen removed the case from the roll because the applicant (Young African) and their lawyers did not appoint the deputy sheriff to summon all respondents to court. Instead, Young African's lawyers sent out details via email, which is not considered commonly acceptable practice.

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Martin Ukarerani