Mbabane – A bid to stop the Africa Evangelical Church from holding its Workers and Delegates Business Session has been thrown out by the High Court after the applicants failed to prove that they had a sufficient legal interest in the church elections and decisions they sought to block.
Justice Z. Magagula dismissed the urgent application on Thursday, finding that Thabo Nhleko and Joseph Dlamini had not established a locus standi to approach the court.
The two had approached the High Court just two days before the scheduled August 26-27 conference, asking for an order preventing church officials from holding the business session, conducting elections or making binding decisions.
Their case was also based on alleged non-compliance with directives contained in a January 29, 2025 judgment in another matter involving the church.
But the court found that the applicants had not shown how the outcome of the conference would personally and directly affect them.
Justice Magagula said Nhleko described himself as a bona fide church member, but that alone was not enough to establish the required legal standing.
The applicants, according to the judge, had not claimed that they wanted to contest the elections, had been nominated as candidates or had any prospect of being nominated or elected.
“They have not demonstrated that they have interests which are peculiar to them as opposed to the interests of all other members of the church,” the judge said.
The court therefore found that their interest appeared to be the same as that of the wider church membership.
The application also ran into trouble over its urgency.
Nhleko told the court that he had been alerted by an unnamed fellow church member about the conference. However, he did not disclose when he received the information.
This omission became important because the respondents argued that the conference was not a sudden event.
They told the court that the church holds the conference annually around the same period and that notices had allegedly been sent to branches as early as February this year. The dates were also allegedly announced to members during Sunday services.
Justice Magagula said the applicants should have disclosed when they became aware of the conference because they were asking the court to set aside the ordinary court procedures and deal with the case as an emergency.
The judge described this as necessary for the court to determine whether the application was a genuine urgent matter or what he termed a “knee-jerk reaction”.
The court further criticised the applicants’ reliance on information from an unidentified source.
Justice Magagula said although the rules allow the court to relax normal procedures in urgent matters, an applicant must still explain fully why the matter cannot wait for ordinary hearing procedures.
The judge consequently upheld the respondents’ objection that the matter was not shown to be sufficiently urgent.
Having also found that the applicants lacked locus standi, the court said it was unnecessary to consider the respondents’ remaining preliminary objections.
The application was accordingly dismissed, with Nhleko and Dlamini ordered to pay the costs jointly and severally.
Discussion about this post