If, like many other businesspeople, you complain about the glacial pace of SA’s legal system, maybe you should count your blessings instead. A decision by the supreme court in Namibia on a water-rights dispute has just been delivered — more than 10 years after the matter was fully argued.The prolonged legal wrangle over access to a shared water point began in 1999, when farmer David Bock won a high court order in terms of which his neighbour, Willem Bock, was to do certain things — allow David to have "peaceful and undisturbed" access to the water point, for example — and not do other things, such as leave gates open so cattle could wander onto David’s veld.The order was served on Willem, but when he ignored it David went back to court and another order was issued: a four-month jail term would follow if Willem continued to disobey the court.Despite this warning, however, Willem cut and removed fences so that even more cattle escaped to David’s land and he also destroyed the pipes ta...
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