Gauteng man’s R1 million unlawful detention claim dismissed. The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has set aside a High Court ruling that awarded R1 million in damages to a Gauteng man for unlawful detention, finding instead that his claim had expired and that key legal principles were incorrectly applied. The court upheld an appeal by the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services and senior correctional officials against a decision of the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, which had ruled in favour of Nkosana Thomas Leso.
Leso had been serving a 28-year prison sentence imposed in 2002 after being convicted of serious offences including attempted rape, attempted murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and housebreaking. He was granted parole in August 2013 under strict conditions, including electronic monitoring through a GPS tracking device. Trouble arose in June 2014 when Leso lost the GPS receiver and reported it to authorities.
A warrant for his arrest was immediately issued, and he was detained at Baviaanspoort Correctional Centre. Although the arrest itself was lawful, Leso was not brought before a court within 48 hours as required by law. His parole was subsequently revoked in October 2014, and he remained in custody until being released again on parole in October 2016.
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Leso initially approached the High Court seeking a declaration that his detention beyond the 48-hour period was unlawful. In 2017, that court agreed, finding that correctional authorities had breached their legal duty by failing to bring him before court timeously. He later instituted a civil claim for damages arising from his detention.
The High Court accepted that the earlier ruling on unlawfulness was binding on the state through the principle of issue estoppel, meaning the state could not dispute liability. It then proceeded to consider only the amount of damages and awarded Leso R1 million. However, the Supreme Court of Appeal found that this approach was flawed.
Writing for the court, JudgeAnna Maleshane Kgoeleheld that the High Court had misapplied the doctrine of issue estoppel. While the earlier judgment had declared part of Leso’s detention unlawful, it did not resolve all the elements necessary to establish liability for damages under delict. The appeal court emphasised that a declaration of unlawfulness alone is not sufficient to found a damages claim.
Critical issues such as causation, wrongfulness in the delictual sense, and the precise duration of unlawful detention had not been determined in the earlier proceedings. As a result, those issues remained open and should have been fully ventilated at trial. The court further noted that Leso’s continued detention after his parole was formally revoked in October 2014 was lawful and not challenged in the proceedings.
This significantly limited any potential claim he might have had. A decisive factor in the appeal was the issue of prescription. The court found that any viable portion of Leso’s claim had expired under the Prescription Act. The period during which his detention might have been unlawful had already prescribed, and the remaining period fell within lawful detention following parole revocation.
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