Toxic air: Court ruling slams Creecy

The supreme court of appeal has demanded action on the Highveld air quality plan

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The supreme court of appeal (SCA) has rebuked the former minister of forestry, fisheries and the environment, Barbara Creecy, for her delay in publishing regulations to address dangerously high levels of air pollution on the Mpumalanga Highveld.

Earlier this month, the country’s highest appellate court handed down judgment dismissing, with costs, Creecy’s appeal of a portion of the March 2022 landmark Deadly Air high court judgment.

The court case, which was launched in 2019 by groundWork and the Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action, successfully challenged the state’s failure to promulgate the necessary regulations to give effect to the objectives of the Highveld air quality management plan.

“In the face of ongoing high levels of air pollution, the minister was duty-bound to act,” wrote Betty Molemela, the president of the SCA, in the blistering judgment. “And with the passage of time, the creation of the regulations became imperative.

“By the time the application was heard in the high court, the urgency of the creation and publication of these regulations was unquestionable. The fact that the regulations were published more than 10 years after the publication of the Highveld plan is a lost opportunity in the quest for an environment that is not harmful to the inhabitants of this country.”

The Highveld Priority Area (HPA), spanning eastern Gauteng and across the Mpumalanga Highveld, was declared a priority area in 2007. It is home to 12 of Eskom’s coal-fired power stations, Sasol’s coal-to-liquid fuels refinery and an assortment of coal-mining operations and other industries.