CAPE TOWN – A Stellenbosch farmworker has secured a legal victory after the Western Cape High Court dismissed his employer’s appeal against a court order that restored his access to his farmhouse.
The court ruled on 6 March 2026 that Johannes van der Westhuizen’s challenge to an interim spoliation order was incompetent and ordered him to pay the legal costs of long-serving employee Koos Booysen.
Booysen, who had lived in a farmhouse on Bonfoi Farm as an employment benefit for about 40 years, found himself locked out after returning from hospital treatment in June 2025. When he returned from his stay with relatives during his medical treatment he discovered the locks had been changed and was denied access to his home.
In September 2025 Booysen approached the Stellenbosch Magistrates’ Court for an urgent ex parte spoliation order. The magistrates granted an interim order on 23 September 2025, restoring his access to the property pending a return hearing.
Van der Westhuizen filed an appeal against the interim order on 25 September 2025, arguing that the ex parte hearing lacked proper notice and there was no urgency justifying the court’s intervention.
However, the Judges found that the appeal was premature and the High Court lacked jurisdiction to hear challenges against interim orders.
Court’s reasoning
The judges applied established legal precedent set by the case Zweni v Minister of Law and Order (1993) to determine that orders are appealable only if they are final in effect, definitive of rights and not susceptible to alteration by the court of first instance.
“The challenged order was interlocutory, expressly interim and subject to discharge or variation on the return day, and thus not appealable,” the court held.
The court noted that entertaining such appeals would encourage piecemeal litigation and undermine the return-day procedure designed to allow parties to present their full case.
The judges also criticised the magistrates’ court for postponing the return day indefinitely, calling this a misdirection since interim orders must have specific return dates.
Case returns to magistrates’ court
The High Court set aside the magistrates’ court’s order of 23 October 2025 and substituted it with a new timetable. Booysen must file any replying affidavit by Tuesday 24 March 2026, with the hearing scheduled for Monday 30 March 2026.
The final determination of whether Booysen was unlawfully dispossessed will now be decided by the Stellenbosch Magistrates’ Court at the scheduled hearing om 30 March 2026.
The court awarded ordinary costs against Van der Westhuizen, but declined to impose punitive attorney-and-client costs despite finding the appeal incompetent.
