On 12 September 2012 the Judge President of the Competition
Appeal Court (CAC), Dennis Davis, while addressing Parliament's
Portfolio Committee on Justice stated that there were too many
levels of appeals in South Africa's judicial system. Judge
Davis argued that the CAC should be the final court of appeal in
competition matters as the process was very time consuming and
allowed matters to "drag on endlessly".
A concern was expressed that removing competition matters from the
jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) would undermine
the jurisdiction of the SCA. Judge Davis argued that this could be
done in competition matters because very specific skills were
needed to hear the cases and those skills were not found in the
SCA.
Currently, decisions of the Competition Tribunal may be appealed
to the CAC, which in turn can be appealed to the SCA and finally to
the Constitutional Court. Judge Davis appealed for at least one of
the layers of appeal in matters of competition law to be removed
from the system. He urged Members of Parliament to support the 17th
Constitutional Amendment Bill, which would exclude the SCA from
hearing competition matters. The amendment would change section 168
(3) of the Constitution, to read "the SCA is the final court
of appeal, except where an Act of Parliament determines
otherwise".
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