Civic organisations, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and SECTION27 on Friday welcomed the judgment handed down by Gauteng Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo in the South Gauteng High Court, which allowed for class action suits against gold companies.

Fifty-six former miners wanted the court to allow them to institute a class action claim for damages against mining companies for occupational diseases.

The defendants in the case included Harmony Gold, Gold Fields, AngloGold Ashanti, Sibanye Gold, African Rainbow Minerals and Anglo American, which had formed the Occupational Lung Disease Working Group to deal with such issues.

TAC general-secretary Anele Yawa said for over 100 years the mining companies had simply allowed their employees to contract silicosis and tuberculosis (TB).

He said the judgment was a reminder to the companies involved that apartheid was over.

“Under the Constitution you will no longer get away with treating your workers as if they are not human beings,” he said.

The court certified two classes, the first and larger being gold miners and former gold miners who had contracted silicosis and the second involved those who had contracted TB.

The class criteria required that a person have worked underground in the mines for at least two years since 1965 and have contracted either disease. Anyone who met the criteria was part of the class. The lawsuit, unless settled, will now proceed into trials in which common issues relevant to all class members will be determined.

The court confirmed that for mineworkers it was class action or no action at all.

It further said the case was the only way the mineworkers would be able to realise their constitutional right of access to court, bearing in mind that they were poor, lacked the sophistication to litigate individually, had no access to legal representatives and were continually battling the effects of two extremely debilitating diseases.

The court also chastised mining companies for their conduct in this litigation, and said conduct that undermined the cause of justice damaged the integrity of the judicial system.

TAC and SECTION27 were admitted as friends of the court and allowed to present additional evidence relating to the importance of a class action as a means to realise constitutional rights.

They saluted the applicants in the case and their lawyers from the Legal Resources Centre, Richard Spoor Inc. and Abraham Kiewietz Attorneys for their determination and commitment to justice.