SAR GROUP ASSIGNMENT

GROUP 102
NEO MAIFADI

Despite Ministerial consent being non-negotiable and completely necessary to

terminate co ownership of agricultural land through a subdivision order, the court still
possesses very wide discretion when passing judgement on these matters. The
court in the Coetzee v Coetzee case illustrates the wide discretion of the courts and
exercises such discretion and does so without undermining the powers of the
Minister but instead acts as a prime example of the synergy,co-operation and
overlapping of the three different spheres of government- namely the executive
sphere, the judicial sphere and the executive sphere. One example of this witnessed
in the Coetzee case is when the judge states : “…the property is res litigiosa and
may then be disposed of only in accordance with the court’s judgment” 1, this shows
the different spheres of government work together in synchronicity- firstly the
Subdivision Act prescribes for ways of disposing of property, this is the role played
by the legislative sphere of the government; secondly the courts interpret the
legislation and where it does not fully cater for the disposing of property, is supposed
to use its discretion to dispose of such land, this the judicial sphere of government
and finally for the executive sphere, the Minister has to give consent on the proposed
disposal of the property.The Coetzee case displays how the courts have a duty and
a function of analysing the evidence and varying subjective factors presented to it in
order to reach a solution or rather to pass judgement that is the most practical, just
and equitable to the parties involved. By setting aside the judgement of the court of
first instance and instead ruling that the land be divided proportionally to the parties’
stake in the land, the court in the Coetzee case used its wide discretion in order to
find a solution that best protects the various rights of the parties and is the most just.

1
Coetzee v Coetzee [2016] ZAWCHC 115; ( para 18)