Reportable 
IN THE HIGH COURT OF SOUTH AFRICA 

Case No A320/12
In the matter between:
REGINALD WILLIAM LYNTON RABIE	Appellant
and
SCHNETLER DE WIT	Respondent

Delivered:	26 February 2013
JUDGMENT

GRIESEL J & NYMAN AJ:

[1] This is an appeal against an order granted in the Bellville magistrate’s court whereby the magistrate dismissed with costs an application brought by the appellant in terms of rule 60A of the Magistrates' Court Rules.

Procedural history
[3] On 23 August 2011 the plaintiff issued a combined summons, accompanied by a document headed ‘Annexure “A” - Particulars of Claim’. Six further schedules were attached to the particulars of claim, including the written acknowledgment of debt fSkuldbewys5) on which the claim is based, as well as voluminous schedules showing how the three individual amounts comprising the claim have been calculated. These latter schedules occupy more than 90 pages of the record, which is an aspect to which I shall return later in this judgment.

in terms of rule 60A(2)(b) (followed by an amended notice spelling out the grounds of complaint in more detail) in which he complained that the summons and particulars of claim did not comply with the provisions of various rules in the following respects:

[5] The plaintiff was afforded a period of ten days to remedy the alleged ‘irregular steps’. When he failed to do so, the defendant delivered a substantive application seeking dismissal of the plaintiffs action with costs; alternatively, that the combined summons be set aside as an irregular step, accompanied by an order for costs.

On appeal

[10] Both remaining complaints amount, in our view, to formalism for the sake of formalism. The fact of the matter is that the plaintiffs claim is for a ‘debt or liquidated amount’. He was therefore entitled, had he so wished, to have issued a simple summons, as authorised by rule 5(2)(b), read with Form 2 of Annexure 1, setting out ‘in concise terms’ his cause of action in a sentence or two. Instead, he chose to utilise ‘a combined summons similar to Form 2B of Annexure 1’, as contemplated by rule S(2)(a). He duly annexed to the summons ‘a statement of the material facts relied upon by the plaintiff in support of plaintiffs claim’.

[12] In our view, a similar flexible interpretation must be applied to the requirement in rule 1 (4)(a) that the Forms in question should ‘in all

[16] Neither of these arguments has any merit. Regarding the first argument, no authority has been quoted to us in support of the proposition, nor have we been able to find any. From a plain reading of sub-rule 60A(3) it is patently clear that a magistrate has a wide discretion to condone or set aside an irregular step:

[18] In this context, counsel made the further rather sweeping submission:

Record
[20] A final aspect requires comment. It relates to the record placed

[21] Uniform rule 50(8) provides:

			Judge of the High Court

			Acting Judge of the High Court