Johannesburg - AfriForum says it has laid a charge of contempt of court against EFF leader Julius Malema over land occupations to “teach him a lesson”.
Next week, the two parties are set to appear before the high court in Pretoria as the lobby group continues with its bid to ensure that Malema does not advocate for South Africans to invade private land.
This comes as the organisation secured a warrant to seize Malema's movable assets last week, relating to the cost order that was awarded against the EFF leader earlier this year.
AfriForum chief executive Kallie Kriel said the organisation wanted to teach Malema and the EFF leadership a lesson.
“They think they are above the law and we want to teach them a lesson. We are advising them to pay this R337758.68 now or the sheriff will take his movable assets to recover these costs. It is just that we do not know the sheriff’s schedule, but once he is free he will have to go and recover our money,” Kriel said.
The cost orders relate to a court interdict that AfriForum instituted against Malema over inciting people to occupy land.
After a no-show by Malema and the EFF, the court granted the order and charged Malema with the cost of the order, which Kriel said he had ignored. “Not only did he ignore the cost order, but he has been in contempt of court because he has been making the same calls for land occupations. Next week we are expecting to meet him in court,” he said.
The case is set for November 14.
Neither Malema nor the EFF’s national spokesperson, Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, could be reached for comment on Monday.
AfriForum has come out as the leading voice among organisations that were opposed to plans to amend Section 25 of the Constitution to enable expropriation of land without compensation, of which the EFF and the ANC are main backers.
For years the lobby group has been at loggerheads with Malema over his controversial remarks, which they view as being against white farmers.
In 2011, Malema was found guilty of hate speech after AfriForum took him to court for singing the Shoot the Boer song.
Malema was president of the ANC Youth League at the time. In the case, Malema was also ordered to refrain from singing the song and was instructed to pay some of AfriForum’s legal costs that were incurred.
Earlier this year, the lobby group also announced that it would privately prosecute Malema for fraud and corruption if the State did not go ahead with his case.
The money laundering and corruption case that involved the company On-Point Engineering, in which Malema’s family trust had shares, was struck off the roll after one of the co-accused could not attend court proceedings.