High Court refuses SARS leave to appeal order stopping it from monitoring tobacco manufacturers

JOHANNESBURG - The High Court in Pretoria has refused the South African Revenue Service (SARS) leave to appeal an interdict barring it from installing CCTV cameras at tobacco-manufacturing warehouses.

In 2022, SARS introduced a new rule allowing for surveillance to curb illicit activity in the industry.

But in May this year, the court interdicted its implementation on the back of an application from the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association and other tobacco manufacturers.

SARS then brought an application for leave to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

It has now been dismissed though.

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The court in its ruling found that SARS had failed to address the appealability of interim interdicts like the one in question - which was issued pending an application to review and set aside the new rule.

In general, they’re not considered appealable unless it’s in the interests of justice, and the court found further that SARS had also failed to deal with the relevant factors in this regard.

In court, SARS argued it was a mistake to grant the interdict when the new rule hadn’t been declared invalid - not yet at least - and that the court should instead have found that unless and until a declaration of invalidity was made, the taxman had a right and, indeed, a duty to implement the new rule.

This argument was also rejected, though, and ultimately the court found SARS hadn’t met the threshold of showing that it had reasonable prospects of success on appeal or that there were other compelling reasons for an appeal to be heard.