Legal adversaries in the matter of the withheld 2022 matric results battled it out before the Mpumalanga Division of the High Court on Friday.

Mpumalanga News attended the court sitting, during which the Department of Education (DoE) applied for yet another postponement in their appeal.

On Friday, lawyers for the DoE were expected to present reasons for the appeal against the court’s earlier ruling that ordered the department to release the results of more than 400 learners.

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The hearing, that was held remotely via an online meetings platform, saw Adv DJ Sibuyi of the Mthunzi Law Chambers in Hazyview and attorney Ephraim Khambako presenting a fierce battle for the appeal to be heard immediately.

Sibuyi, representing over 300 of the learners, was assisted by candidate counsel Tuwani Muavha and attorney Tatenda Magocha.

Lawyers for the DoE insisted that they had interacted with Sibuyi the previous night, saying they had agreed on a postponement.

Sibuyi told the court that as much as the lawyers for the department had spoken to him the night before, there was no agreement concerning a date.

Representatives for the DoE wanted the matter to be postponed to July 4, stating that their documentation was not yet in order.

“My lady, the learners’ futures are continuing to be in jeopardy here. If the matter is postponed to July 4, the learners will again be unable to register with institutions of higher learning. The court must take into consideration that it has previously ordered the department to release the full results of these learners, but the department decided to appeal. Now they continue to waste time with their never-ending postponements,” Sibuyi told Justice J Vukeya.

Meanwhile, Khambako, who is representing 62 of the learners, told the court that he was hearing about the planned postponement for the very first time.

“My lady, nobody spoke to me about any postponement plans. I am ready to proceed with the appeal hearing,” he told the court.

The DoE had not written to the court beforehand to communicate their wish for a postponement.

“Why is this court only now told about this planned postponement and where is the corresponding documentation?” a court representative, whose name could not immediately be established, asked the DoE’s lawyers.

After a number of back-and-forth arguments, the court adjourned for a few minutes pending its ruling on whether or not to grant a postponement.

“We feel compelled that according to the submission by the appellant, the matter be removed from the court roll and the appellant is ordered to pay the wasted cost for today on party-to-party scale,” the court ruled.

As things stand, the matter will be put on the court roll again at a later date for the appeal hearing to take place.

The high court had ruled in favour of the plaintiffs on August 12 last year and ordered the education department to release their results during a scathing landmark judgment.

This ruling was mostly based on the department’s failure at the time to follow its own rules regarding the procedures for withholding results and subsequent investigations.

After some suspicions of cheating arose, the department called the learners to attend disciplinary hearings and found them guilty of irregularities during exams.

Allegedly, some attended the hearings without parental accompaniment.

Most of the affected matriculants were from high schools in the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality.