N.P.K. v K.A.K (2020/15202; 2024/023432) [2025] ZAGPJHC 669 (11 July 2025)

SAFLII Note: Certain personal/private details of parties or witnesses have been redacted from this document in compliance with the law and SAFLII Policy

REPUBLIC

OF SOUTH AFRICA

IN

THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA

GAUTENG LOCAL DIVISION, JOHANNESBURG

Case Numbers: 2020-15202

and 2024-023432

(1) REPORTABLE: YES / NO

(2) OF INTEREST TO OTHER JUDGES: YES/NO

(3) REVISED: YES/NO

In the matter between:

In the matter between

N[...] P[...] K[...]

Applicant

and

K[...] A[...] K[...]

Respondent

JUDGMENT

VON LUDWIG AJ:

Introduction

[1] There were, in total, five applications before me on one day, which were all set down together by the Deputy Judge President.

[2] It makes perfect sense to me that all these applications should be set down before the same Judge, at the same time, to enable a thorough but composite reading of all the papers, and to save both parties significant time and costs.

[3] In some applications Mrs K[...] is the Applicant and in others Mr K[...] is the Applicant, the over-arching matter being their divorce.

[4] The first of the applications to be dealt with was what Mrs K[...], as the Applicant, referred to as the “Reconsideration Application” in which she asked that “the current hearing schedule must be reconsidered” She asked that the application brought by Mr K[...] to compel her to discover and comply with section 7 of the Matrimonial Property Act should be postponed and that the remaining applications should be heard on the date which, she contends, they were “originally scheduled” being 24 March (one week later than the date on which the parties were before me)..

[5] She contended that her ability to prepare her submissions had been severely prejudiced especially as a self-represented litigant.

[6] Mrs K[...] contended that the date had been arranged unilaterally by way of what she termed “extra judicial correspondence” and that she had not had time to complete all her documents.

[7] She also contended that each application needed to be heard separately otherwise “critical issues unique to each matter might be overshadowed or inadequately addressed”.

[8] She further thought that the correspondence requesting a single hearing date could possible “taint the adjudicating panel”.

[9] After engaging with Mrs K[...], and hearing submissions from Ms Woodward on which papers have been delivered (complete sets in the applications before me) I made the following finding “I am absolutely satisfied that the Deputy Judge President acted correctly in allocating the date for all matters to be heard and insofar as there can in fact even be before me an application for reconsideration of date, I am not entirely sure that I have the power as a court to tell the Deputy Judge President what to do in terms of processes and procedure. The date has been correctly allocated” and an ex tempore Order which may be found

at pages 12 and particularly 13 (lines 7 to 10) of the Record and which is set out below :

ORDER :

[1] The application for reconsideration of date is quite simply dismissed as having no basis in fact or in procedure.

VON LUDWIG, AJ

ACTING JUDGE OF THE HIGH COURT

DATE: 18 March 2025

Appearances: For the Applicant: In person

For the Respondent: Adv J Woodward SC

Instructed by Phillippa Kruger Attorney