NSPCA’S financial blow in court bid to ban shipping of live sheep

The National Council of SPCAS has suffered a serious setback in its high court bid to secure a total ban on the export of sheep from South African shores to over the equator.

The high court sitting in Makhanda has dismissed an application that would allow the NSPCA to convert its case from motion proceedings to action proceedings — which would have permitted it to call expert witnesses to testify.

The NSPCA launched its motion proceedings in 2020 asking the court to issue a blanket ban on this export practice because it maintains that sheep suffer such a degree of heat stress in the closed ship environment that it amounts to terrible cruelty prohibited by South African law.

But Middle East livestock exporter Al Mawashi and its parent company Livestock Transport & Trading Company (LTTC) believe a unique ventilation system in their ships will prevent any heat harm to the sheep.

Matters brought via motion proceedings in court are done via affidavits rather than by oral evidence.

But the NSPCA — recognising that there was a dispute of fact over whether ship ventilation systems might mitigate heat stress — applied to the high court in April to convert the motion proceedings to action proceedings, which would allow it to call expert witnesses to testify.

The NSPCA maintains that it has international experts who can testify that ventilation systems do not mitigate heat stress in sheep kept in confined conditions on a ship crossing the equator.

But judge Nozuko Mjali said that the court rules did not permit the conversion of motion proceedings to action proceedings.

She said the NSPCA could have foreseen a dispute of fact over heat stress as it had emerged in previous litigation between it and Al Mawashi.

More than 1,700 pages had already been filed in the motion proceedings and to now convert it to trial proceedings would prejudice Al Mawashi, LTTC and other respondents, including the department of agriculture and the state veterinary services in the Eastern Cape.