#StateCapture: Opposition parties win legal bid to intervene

Pretoria, 1 November 2016 - Court hears President Jacob Zuma's application to interdict State Capture Report.

Watch the full day 1 proceedings in court here.

PRETORIA - Three judges in the North Gauteng High Court granted the DA, EFF, UDM, Cope and former MP Vytjie Mentor the right to intervene in the Public Protector’s report into state capture on Tuesday afternoon.

Judge President Dunstan Mlambo ordered that costs should be paid by the state.

Opposition parties have won their legal bid to intervene in the #StateCaptureReport court proceedings. Here's the judgment... pic.twitter.com/WHWf9t32sE
— eNCA (@eNCA) November 1, 2016

The judge also ruled that Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Des van Rooyen’s urgent interdict application to stop the release of the report is struck off the roll, with costs, for lack of urgency.

READ: #StateCapture: Leave the part about me out of it – Van Rooyen

The report contains former public protector Thuli Madonsela's findings on allegations that the politically connected Gupta family wielded vast influence over executive decisions and was the last she finalised before leaving office earlier this month.

A day before former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela left her term of office President Jacob Zuma applied for a court interdict against the release of the report, saying that he wasn’t awarded the right to interview other state witnesses.

Van Rooyen and Minister of Mineral Resources Mosebenzi Zwane also made submissions suggesting that the report was hastily prepared without due regard to their constitutional rights, feeling they could suffer "grave harm" if the report was released in its current form.

Earlier, legal counsel for the opposition parties and Mentor argued that it was their right to intervene in the case because the Public Protector’s report is in the public interest and their parties represent a large constituents.