Military veteran still waiting for pension four years after court victory

Following a six-year legal battle, Mangaliso Petse, an APLA military veteran secured a court order in 2022 directing the Department of Defence and Military Veterans to pay him an annual pension. Four years later, he has not received a cent. Illustration: Bronwyn Webb.

• Former APLA veteran Mangaliso Petse says the Department of Defence and Military Veterans has not paid him a cent despite a 2022 court order granting him a lifelong pension.
• The department argues the judgment could open the door to thousands of similar pension claims, while Petse says it is relying on procedural delays to avoid complying with the order.
• After obtaining a writ of execution this year, Petse had departmental assets attached, but the department is again in court seeking to stop enforcement while it pursues further legal challenges.
• The department’s years of litigation have been marred by what it calls “appalling, horrendous services” from the State Attorney’s office.

Following a six-year legal battle, Mangaliso Petse, a military veteran of the African People’s Liberation Army (APLA), secured a court order in 2022 directing the Department of Defence and Military Veterans to pay him an annual pension.

Four years later, he is owed almost R1-million, but he has still not received a cent, with the department fumbling its appeal opportunities yet seemingly intent on not backing down.

The department claims the judgment by Johannesburg High Court Judge Raylene Keightley in Petse’s favour cannot be allowed to stand because it will open the floodgates for thousands more veterans to claim pension benefits.

But Petse, who joined APLA in 1987 and went into exile when he was 14, says this is not true. The law entitles him to a pension, and the department did not dispute this. If others are similarly entitled in terms of legislation, then they were also lawfully due pensions.

Petse, in argument before Keightley, said the department had only raised a technicality, claiming he had not properly applied for a pension. The judge ruled that this was “putting form over substance”.

The department sought leave to appeal, but Judge Keightley struck it from the roll because the application was out of time and ordered the department to pay punitive costs.

The department tried to reinstate the appeal, but this was refused in a scathing ruling by Acting Judge Sesi Baloyi in 2024 because the department’s legal representatives did not come to court, even though Baloyi stood the matter down for several days and issued directions for the filing of further papers. Judge Baloyi also ordered the department to pay punitive costs.

The State Attorney’s lawyer handling the matter belatedly filed an “explanatory affidavit” in which he claimed that at the time, he did not have access to his email. Baloyi described this as “opportunistic, if not dishonest”.

The department is now seeking to rescind Baloyi’s order. It needs to do this before it can again attempt to appeal Keightley’s order. The matter was set down for June this year, but the day before the hearing, the advocate acting for the department said he was not available.

However, the court directed that the matter would proceed. The department’s lawyers then said they wanted to negotiate a settlement and asked that the application be postponed.

Petse refused their subsequent settlement offer.

As things stand, the rescission application is only likely to be heard later this year - or next year.

In the department’s application, Caroline Mongale, chief director of health care and wellness, blamed the debacle on the “appalling, horrendous services” from the State Attorney’s office in that rescission application.

She claimed the lawyer handling the matter did not bring the Keightley judgment to the department’s attention, and it was only discovered through a media report. This was why the leave to appeal application was out of time.

The department had also not been aware that the appeal reinstatement application was proceeding in February 2024 before Baloyi, or that the judge had issued directives to the parties.

Mongale said that the department was taking steps to report the lawyer’s behaviour, to compel him to pay all the cost orders, and to report him to the Legal Practice Council.

She said this was not a case of an “unsuccessful litigant” dragging out the case but of ensuring that the implications of the Keightley judgment were properly tested.

But Petse, who is now being represented pro bono by Webber Wentzel, says his attorney had sent a personal SMS to the department’s lawyer informing him that the matter was proceeding and giving details of the judge’s directives.

“There can be no other conclusion than that he ignored the SMS,” Petse said, noting that the lawyer was still employed at the State Attorney’s office and questioning what action had been taken against him.

“He also cannot be used as a scapegoat. The department had a responsibility to monitor the progress of the case.”

Petse said he was entitled to “finality” and the department’s opposition was based on a procedural technicality.

In February, Petse, relying on the Keightley judgment, obtained a writ of execution against the department and the Sheriff attached property, including office furniture, computers and bar fridges, at its offices in the Armscor building in Pretoria to the value of about R900,000.

The department rushed to court in a bid to secure an interim interdict to immediately suspend the writ and the notice of attachment. It further sought a final interdict, stopping any attachment pending the finalisation of the recission/appeal process.

The department did not persist with the urgent interdict after Petse agreed not to immediately proceed with the attachment, but he is opposing the grant of any final interdict.

“This application seeks to prevent me from obtaining the benefit of the [Keightley] order,” he said in his affidavit.

“This conduct forms a pattern…the practical effect is that I am required to continue litigating against a state department with vastly greater resources in its attempt to outlitigate and exhaust me.”

Support independent journalism
Donate using Payfast