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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Unfamiliarity withthe class actions was referred to the South AfricanLaw Commission(“SALC”) that met it by establishing Project 88 on whichit reported in 1998.[26] Project88 was an “investigationinto the recognition of class actions and public interest actions”.In the course of undertaking what proved to be a comprehensiveinvestigation, the SALC carefully examined the efficacy,role andplace of class actions in South African law, and in doing so itprovided us with a definition of the term “classaction”. The definition it provided reads:“’Classaction’ means an action instituted by a representative onbehalf of a class of persons in respect of whom the reliefclaimedand the issues involved are substantially similar in respect ofall members of the class, and which action is certifiedas a classaction in terms of the Act.”[7][27] TheSALC recommended that before a class action is brought the person, orgroup, intending to bring such an application should firstapply tothe court for an order certifying the proposed action. Acertification application is no more than a request for permissiontoenter the portal of court enmasseand for the applicant(s) to be accepted as representative(s) of theentire mass. Absent such an order, the applicant(s) seekingtoinstitute a class action would be precluded from so doing. The needfor certification is based on the time-honoured principlethat thecourt alone should be the master of its own process, a principle thathas subsequently received the imprimatur of theConstitution.[8][28] TheSALC called on the legislature to enact legislation[9]that would direct the court’s attention to the following issueswhen considering whether or not to certify a class action:(a)whether there is an
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