JURISDICTION

Jurisdiction means the ability of a court to determine a dispute properly and effectively between two parties.

In recent years, this question has been made evermore complex by a plethora of specialist Courts, often baffling legal practitioners and occasionally judges. Therefore, this is meant to be a simple guide to the basics of jurisdiction and, as such, it will primarily focus on the Magistrate’s Courts, it should be noted that each Court has its own particular rules for jurisdiction. The reason why it is so important to get jurisdiction right is that if jurisdiction is incorrect then, regardless of the merits of your case, you will lose and have to pay the costs.

The Magistrate’s Court is a creature of stature and, as such, has rules regarding what matters it may or may not hear. We will look at jurisdiction generally and then how to determine which specific court has jurisdiction. There are two primary questions that must be asked:

1. What is the value of your claim?
2. What is the nature of your claim?

Value of your Claim

The starting point for this is looking at the amount of money you want to claim. If the amount falls below R 200 000-00 then the district Magistrates’ Court will have jurisdiction. If your claim is between R 200 001-00 to R 400 000-00, then the regional Magistrates’ Court will have jurisdiction additionally. The Regional Magistrates’ Court can hear divorces.

As with every legal rule, there are exceptions to it. Exceptions to the monetary value of the Magistrates’ Courts is:

• Consent – Which is when both parties consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates’ Court, importantly parties cannot consent to a particular Magistrates’ Court only to generally litigate in the Magistrates’ Court. An example of this is in a contract which could contain a clause consenting to the Magistrates’ Courts jurisdiction, if a dispute were to arise, in order to save costs.
• If you were to abandon part of your claim. For example, if you have a claim of R 215 000-00 against someone, you could abandon R 15 000-00 to bring it into the jurisdiction of the District Magistrates’ Court.
• If you deduct a debt which you owe that person from a claim you have against that person. For example you have a claim of R 250 000-00 against a person but you owe them R 50 000-00 then you can deduct the debt you owe them from your claim.

Nature of your Claim

The second question you have to look at is the nature of the claim. There are certain claims that are prohibited from being heard in the Magistrates’ Courts and, broadly these are dealt with in Section 46 of the Magistrates’ Court and are claims relating to statuses.

Prohibited claims include:

• The validity of a Will
• Curatorship.
• A specific performance without an alternative claim for damages.

Now we know generally the jurisdiction of the Magistrates’ Courts, we must look at which specific one should you institute action from. There are many scattered across the country with multiple located in a single city.

Section 28 of the Magistrates’ Court Act deals with location and which is the correct Magistrates’ Court to use.

• If the Defendant (the person you want to claim from) is ordinarily resident in that area, then the Magistrates’ Court of that area would have jurisdiction. For example, if the defendant is on holiday in Velddrif, but ordinarily resides in Cape Town, then the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court would have jurisdiction.
• If the Defendant is a sole trader or a partnership, then the jurisdiction would be where they carry on business. For the purpose of a company, it would either be the registered address of the company or its principal place of business.
• If the cause of action wholly arose within the Magistrates’ Court jurisdiction. Wholly arose means all the essential facts you have to prove arose within one particular court’s jurisdiction. So for example if you have a car accident and you live in Cape Town and the other driver lives in Durban and the accident occurred in Velddrif, then you can institute action in the Laaiplek Magistrates’ Court.
• If it is related to immovable property then where the immovable property is located would be the area of jurisdiction.

We hope that you found this article helpful and informative. You can contact our offices at 010 630 0299 or email us at lauren@kimpattorneys.co.za.