According to the Mail and Guardian, Earthlife Africa, an evironmental group, has been prohibited by a court order from making public the contents of an Eskom risk assesment.
Earthlife Africa is currently engaged in protracted litigation with Eskom, South Africa's incumbent power utility, and back in June Eskoms attorney apparently gave the document to Earthlife by mistake.
The strange thing is that the application apparently took place last Friday (2 September), even though the disclosure of the document took place in June. Nogal late on Friday.
If one knows how fond the learned ladies and gentlemen of the legal profession in Johannesburg are of setting aside Friday afternoon to philosophise and discuss the finer points of the law this suggests that application was both urgent and probably ex parte.
What could constitute grounds for such urgency after a delay of more than two months?
The order also prohibites the media from disclosing or dealing with the documents.
It is the second high profile court order prohibiting media disclosure in the last few months prompting considerable disquiet from the media.