The Observatory Civic Association and the Goringhaicona Khoi Khoin Indigenous Traditional Council welcome Judge Goliath’s ruling in favour of our application to interdict the ongoing construction at the River Club site in Observatory. In her carefully crafted judgement, she noted the importance of First Nation Peoples’ deep and sacred linkage to the site through lineage, oral history, past history and narrratives, indigenous knowledge systems, living heritage and collective memory. She found that the fundamental rights to culture and heritage of Khoi and San peoples were under threat if the development was allowed to proceed. She agreed that our argument about the threat of irreparable and imminent harm to heritage was reasonable.
Notably, Judge Goliath dismissed the idea that the developers’ claim to suffer financial loss were relevant. She concluded that the developers were fully aware of the risks they were taking in proceeding with the development when they knew the development was contested and subject to litigation…