By Monwabisi Jimlongo
Following a number of defeats inflicted by Moffat Qithi on numerous legal platforms, Boxing South Africa (BSA) has now asked the Constitutional Court for condonement after the boxing regulatory body failed to meet the 15-day period to file its papers at the Apex Court.
In February this year, the Labour Appeal Court denied BSA leave to appeal against the Labour Court’s November ruling on the Qithi matter and the boxing regulatory body decided in its Sunday, 19 February board meeting to take the matter to the Apex Court. Initially, BSA had petitioned the Labour Appeal Court after it lost against Qithi at the Labour Court in November last year.
“These people are unbelievable. They decided at their 19 February board meeting that they would take the matter to the Constitutional Court. However, they failed to do so in the 15-day specified period. What they are doing is ridiculous considering that the Labour Appeal Court made a ruling on the 17th of February and now they have just asked for condonement from the Constitutional Court. We are opposing their application because they applied late. This is an unreasonable delay from them,” Qithi said.
The Labour Appeal Court said in its ruling in February: “The petition for leave to appeal is refused with no order as to costs.The refusal for leave to appeal signifies that this court is of the view that the intended appeal has no reasonable prospects of success.”
Qithi had opposed BSA’s appeal on the ruling Labour Court Judge Portia Nkutha-Nkontwana delivered in November. Nkutha-Nkontwana dismissed BSA’s appeal to review a Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) ruling, which had ruled in Qithi’s favour after BSA dismissed him as its chief executive officer in 2015.
Delivering her judgment last November, Nkutha-Nkontwana said: “Seven years have passed since the time Mr Qithi was dismissed and this matter is yet to be finalised. Mr Qithi, the vulnerable party, is still unemployed and held hostage by the party who had approached this Court on an unmeritorious review application.”
Qithi won his case against BSA on 17 December 2018 and the CCMA ordered that he be paid R3,9 million plus interest and also be reinstated as CEO. That never happened as the then BSA board applied for the review of the CCMA ruling on 1 February 2019 – the last day of the six weeks provided for in Section 145 of the Labour Relations Act.
Judge Nkutha-Nkontwana also said in her November ruling: “Accordingly, I am not persuaded that there is a reasonable prospect that the factual matrix in this case might receive a different treatment at the appeal. Put differently, the applicant has failed to make a case that another Court might reasonably arrive at a decision different to the one reached by this Court. Yet, I am not inclined to award costs against the applicant. In the circumstances, the leave to appeal application is dismissed with no order to costs.”
Efforts to get a comment for BSA board spokesperson Azwitamisi Nthangeni drew a blank as his cellphone was consistently not answered since Friday last week.
