Excerpt: The Democratic Alliance and its Minister Dean Macpherson thought they had scored a decisive victory against Liberty Fighters Network. Armed with senior counsel, State Attorneys, and a punitive court order, the Minister publicly celebrated what appeared to be a crushing defeat for LFN and its President, Reyno De Beer. But while the victory lap was underway, another court process was quietly unfolding behind the scenes. What happened next changed everything. After considering submissions from both sides, Goliath DJP ruled that the Court was functus officio and granted no costs order against LFN and De Beer, striking at the very heart of the narrative the DA and its Minister had been promoting. This is the remarkable story of how a volunteer-driven public interest organisation, standing virtually alone against a well-funded political party, a government minister, senior advocates, attorneys, and the weight of the legal establishment, refused to back down. From courtroom confrontations and procedural battles to conflicting judicial outcomes and a ministerial celebration that may have come far too soon, this is a legal drama that every South African who cares about justice, accountability, and access to the courts should read.
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Some victories arrive with trumpets.
Others arrive quietly, in the form of a short court order that says more than a thousand press statements ever could.
On 18 June 2026, Liberty Fighters Network and its President, Reyno De Beer, received the ruling that the Democratic Alliance and its Minister Dean Macpherson probably never wanted the public to read too carefully. After all the noise, all the accusations, all the legal muscle, all the taxpayer-funded firepower, and all the public celebration by the Minister, Goliath DJP recorded the position in plain legal terms:
The Court is functus officio.
No order as to costs is granted against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
To the ordinary member of the public, those words may sound technical. To those who understand the courts, they are dynamite.
“Functus officio” simply means that the Court had already performed its function and no longer had authority to continue entertaining the issue as if the withdrawn amicus curiae application still had a legal life of its own. “No order as to costs”, means that the DA’s attempt to saddle LFN and Reyno De Beer with costs arising from the withdrawal failed.
That is the part the DA and its Minister will not be rushing to put on a government media statement.
But let us start at the beginning, because this story matters. It matters to LFN. It matters to every supporter. It matters to every member of the public who still believes that the courts must remain open to ordinary people, voluntary associations, and civic bodies that do not have millions of rands to spend on senior counsel, junior counsel, attorneys, consultants, and political public relations machinery.
The Expropriation Act case and LFN’s proposed role
The Democratic Alliance launched its challenge against the Expropriation Act. LFN and Reyno De Beer sought to be admitted as amici curiae, meaning “friends of the court”, in order to place before the Court novel and distinct submissions in the broader public interest.
LFN did not seek admission to waste the Court’s time. LFN did not seek admission to delay the DA’s case. LFN did not seek admission to harass anyone.
LFN sought admission because the constitutional issues around expropriation are too important to be controlled only by political parties, government ministers, and the usual black-robed legal fraternity. The land question, property rights, the Constitution, and the State’s power over the assets of ordinary people are not private property belonging to the DA, the Minister, or the expensive legal class.
They belong to the people.
That is why LFN entered the arena.
Then the procedural mess began.
The Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure, Dean Macpherson, represented by the State Attorney and led by well-known senior counsel Anton Katz SC, filed an affidavit in the amicus curiae process. LFN took issue with the manner in which the Minister’s side had conducted itself procedurally and lodged interlocutory applications under Uniform Rules 30 and 30A.
Those applications were not a game. They were not theatre. They were the result of LFN’s view that rules apply to everyone, including ministers, the State Attorney, senior counsel, and the DA’s preferred legal allies.
The problem with the legal fraternity is that many of them love the rules when they are used against ordinary people, but suddenly become allergic to the same rules when ordinary people insist that those rules also bind them.
LFN has seen this pattern too many times.
The withdrawal that should have ended the fight
On 16 February 2026, LFN and Reyno De Beer withdrew the entire amicus curiae application.
The withdrawal expressly excluded a tender for costs. The reason was clearly recorded. LFN withdrew for pragmatic and procedural reasons, in the interests of justice, to prevent further interlocutory disputes from derailing the main Expropriation Act litigation and prejudicing other litigants.
That is important.
LFN did not withdraw because it accepted that its arguments lacked merit. LFN did not withdraw because it surrendered to the DA or the Minister. LFN withdrew because continued satellite litigation around procedure risked turning the main constitutional challenge into a side-show.
In plain language: LFN chose not to let the Minister’s procedural mess become everyone else’s problem.
That should have been the end of it.
But it was not.
Instead of accepting that the amicus curiae application was withdrawn and that no lis remained, the Minister’s legal team decided to press on. They contested the withdrawal and demanded that LFN and Reyno De Beer attend court in person on 25 February 2026, notwithstanding that the Minister had previously agreed that the matter could proceed virtually.
Reyno De Beer was then forced to extend his stay in Cape Town to accommodate the Minister’s insistence.
Pause there for a moment.
A public interest voluntary association without gain, relying on donations and self-sacrifice, was forced to incur more personal inconvenience and expense because a DA Minister, backed by the State Attorney and senior counsel, wanted to push for costs after the main amicus curiae application had already been withdrawn.
That is not justice.
That is lawfare dressed in legal robes.
One man against the machinery
On 25 February 2026, the matter came before Le Grange J.
LFN was represented by Reyno De Beer alone.
On the other side stood the Minister’s taxpayer-funded legal machinery, led by Anton Katz SC, together with further legal practitioners and the State Attorney’s office.
It was the familiar scene: one citizen-activist standing alone, surrounded by the professional legal establishment.
From LFN’s perspective, the atmosphere in court was immediately troubling. Before the substantive issues could properly be ventilated, Le Grange J made it clear that he was not prepared to allow Reyno De Beer to represent LFN, relying on what LFN regards as an outdated, selectively applied and historically entrenched position that juristic persons may only appear through legal practitioners.
That attitude is one of the reasons LFN exists.
Because when the wealthy, the politically connected, and the legally represented enter court, the system seems to roll out the carpet. But when ordinary people, voluntary associations, and pro se litigants enter the same building, they are often treated as intruders in a private club.
LFN’s position before Le Grange J was direct:
The amicus curiae application had been withdrawn.
There was no live amicus application left.
If the Minister wanted costs, he had to bring a proper application on notice under Rule 41(1)(c).
LFN and Reyno De Beer were entitled to respond properly in writing.
The Minister was not entitled to turn a withdrawn application into a roaming punitive-costs hunt.
Le Grange J reserved judgment.
The DA then tried the same thing before Goliath DJP
Unknown to LFN and Reyno De Beer at the time, the DA, represented by Karrisha Pillay SC and instructed by Minde Schapiro & Smith, appeared before Goliath DJP on 2 March 2026.
The DA also wanted costs against LFN and Reyno De Beer arising from the withdrawal of the amicus curiae application.
In other words, the DA and its Minister were singing from the same hymn sheet.
The DA’s senior counsel advanced arguments on costs. However, unlike what LFN experienced before Le Grange J, Goliath DJP did not simply accept a one-sided narrative and then punish LFN in its absence. She issued directions.
LFN and Reyno De Beer were allowed to file written submissions by 17 March 2026.
The DA was allowed to respond by 31 March 2026.
The Court would thereafter decide the matter on the papers, the written submissions, and the oral submissions already made by the DA.
That is how basic procedural fairness is supposed to look.
Not perfect. Not necessarily ideal. But at least LFN and Reyno De Beer were given a proper opportunity to be heard before being mulcted in costs.
LFN filed its submissions on 17 March 2026.
The DA did not respond by 31 March 2026.
No explanation. No condonation. No indulgence. No answer.
The DA had asked for the fight.
Then it failed to pitch up properly in writing when the Court gave it the opportunity.
The Le Grange J judgment and the Minister’s premature celebration
Before Goliath DJP delivered her ruling, Le Grange J delivered judgment on 2 June 2026.
The judgment was severe.
It dismissed the Rule 30 and Rule 30A applications. It granted a punitive attorney-and-client costs order. It held Reyno De Beer personally liable de bonis propriis. It included the costs of two counsel. It also stated that LFN was not properly before the Court.
LFN strongly disputes that judgment and will now take the necessary legal steps to have it declared invalid, alternatively rescinded, varied, corrected, clarified, reconsidered or set aside through the competent procedure.
But Minister Macpherson did not wait for the dust to settle.
He rushed to celebrate.
A public media statement was issued on the official government platform, welcoming the judgment against LFN and Reyno De Beer. The Minister presented the judgment as a victory for the integrity of the courts. The statement repeated the Court’s harsh findings and portrayed LFN’s litigation as abusive, meritless, improper, and a drain on public resources.
That was the Minister’s victory lap.
The DA Minister thought he had delivered a humiliating defeat to LFN.
He thought the public statement would frame the narrative.
He thought LFN had been put in its place.
But court battles are not won by press statements. They are won by law, procedure and truth.
And then came Goliath DJP’s order.
Goliath DJP’s order: the legal boomerang
After considering the DA’s arguments and LFN’s written submissions, Goliath DJP recorded that the Court was functus officio and that no costs order was granted against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
That is the turning point.
The DA wanted costs.
The DA had been given the opportunity to answer LFN’s submissions.
The DA failed to do so.
The Court then made no costs order against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
That is not a small procedural footnote. That is a direct blow to the DA’s cost crusade.
It also has obvious consequences for the Minister’s public celebration. The Minister and his legal team knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that the Goliath DJP process was pending and that LFN had already placed its full procedural position before that Court. They also knew, or ought reasonably to have known, that the costs issue arising from the withdrawal of the amicus curiae application remained contested in the main amicus process.
Yet the Minister still celebrated as if everything was over.
It was not over.
In fact, the DA’s own attempt to secure costs against LFN in the main amicus curiae withdrawal has now failed.
That makes the Minister’s celebration premature at best and deeply insulting at worst.
LFN will not call this a “bloody nose“, because this is not a tavern brawl, and we do not need violent language to describe legal reality. This is better described as a legal boomerang.
The blow aimed at LFN came back toward the DA and its Minister.
Why the Le Grange J judgment cannot be left standing
LFN’s position is that the Le Grange J judgment cannot stand.
By the time the Minister’s interlocutory matters were argued on 25 February 2026, the main amicus curiae application had already been withdrawn. If the main application was no longer alive, then any interlocutory process born from that application could not simply float around independently as a punishment machine.
LFN’s position is further that if the Minister wanted costs, the proper route was a substantive application on notice under Rule 41(1)(c), giving LFN and Reyno De Beer a proper opportunity to answer.
That did not happen.
Instead, LFN says the Minister’s legal team pressed forward with a procedurally defective costs attack, and Le Grange J granted an adverse judgment after a process LFN regards as procedurally unfair and materially prejudicial.
The contrast with Goliath DJP is stark.
Goliath DJP gave LFN and Reyno De Beer the opportunity to file written submissions.
Goliath DJP allowed the DA to answer.
The DA did not answer.
Goliath DJP then ruled that the Court was functus officio and granted no costs against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
Le Grange J, by contrast, issued a punitive personal costs order against Reyno De Beer and made sweeping findings about LFN, its standing, its representation, and its litigation conduct.
LFN will now ask the competent court to deal with that contradiction properly.
The representation issue: one rule for them, another for us?
One of the most troubling aspects of the Le Grange J judgment is the finding that LFN was not properly before the Court because Reyno De Beer is not a legal practitioner.
LFN has never hidden the truth.
LFN is a voluntary association without gain. Its officials are not registered legal practitioners. Its work is done without demanding payment for legal services. It assists people, members, and the public because ordinary South Africans are being financially and procedurally strangled out of the justice system.
That is the whole point.
The legal fraternity has created a system so expensive, so technical and so intimidating that many people simply give up before they ever reach the door of the court.
Then, when someone like LFN steps forward to assist without demanding fees, the same fraternity shouts, “You are not allowed in here”.
How convenient.
LFN’s position has always been clear: where it acts through its President in the public interest, without demanding remuneration and in accordance with its constitution and mandate, the Court should not mechanically shut the door in the face of a voluntary association seeking access to justice.
Goliath DJP had no issue inviting written submissions from LFN and Reyno De Beer. Her order records Reyno De Beer as appearing in person for the Applicant Amici Curiae.
That factual reality sits uncomfortably next to the Minister’s celebration of Le Grange J’s finding that LFN was supposedly not properly before the Court.
This is precisely why LFN says the issue must now be tested directly and properly.
The DA, its Minister, and the legal fraternity should not expect silence
LFN is apolitical. But apolitical does not mean blind.
We do not have to sit around the same table as the DA to recognise when the DA behaves unfairly. We do not have to like Minister Macpherson’s conduct to be accurate about it. We do not have to respect the habits of the legal fraternity when those habits are used to intimidate civic participants out of court.
Let us say it plainly.
We dislike the DA’s conduct in this matter.
We dislike the Minister’s public celebration of a punitive costs order while related procedural issues were still alive.
We dislike the eagerness with which wealthy and well-connected legal teams try to brand public interest litigants as vexatious when those litigants refuse to be bullied.
We dislike the culture in which the legal fraternity appears to protect its own procedural defects while weaponising procedure against the public.
And we make no apology for saying so.
LFN was not created to flatter political parties, ministers, senior counsel, or judges. LFN was created to fight for access to justice, constitutional accountability, and legal reform.
What this victory means for ordinary South Africans
This is not only about LFN.
It is not only about Reyno De Beer.
It is not only about the DA.
It is not only about Minister Macpherson.
This is about whether public interest litigants can approach courts without being threatened into silence by ruinous costs orders.
It is about whether voluntary associations can participate in constitutional litigation without being crushed by the expensive machinery of political parties and the State.
It is about whether the rules of court are instruments of justice or weapons reserved for the powerful.
It is about whether ordinary people may still walk into court and say, “We are here. We have something important to say. The Constitution belongs to us too”.
The DA and Minister Macpherson tried to turn LFN’s withdrawal into a story of defeat.
Goliath DJP’s order tells a very different story.
The DA sought costs.
LFN answered.
The DA failed to answer LFN’s submissions.
The Court recorded that it was functus officio.
No costs were granted against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
That is a victory.
Not a final victory in every procedural battle. Not yet. The Le Grange J judgment must still be dealt with through the appropriate legal process. But it is a major victory in the main amicus curiae costs fight, and it exposes the Minister’s public celebration as premature, one-sided and politically opportunistic.
What happens next
LFN will now proceed with the necessary legal steps to challenge the Le Grange J judgment.
LFN will seek appropriate relief declaring that judgment invalid, alternatively setting it aside, rescinding it, varying it, clarifying it, reconsidering it, or otherwise correcting the injustice through competent procedure.
LFN will also proceed with a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission regarding what it regards as unacceptable conduct and the manner in which the matter was handled.
This will not be done for revenge.
It will be done because the justice system cannot be reformed by silence.
It will be done because procedural fairness is not a luxury reserved for those who can afford senior counsel.
It will be done because no judge, minister, political party, attorney or advocate should be beyond scrutiny.
It will be done because the people deserve better.
The final word, for now
The Minister took his victory lap too early.
The DA tried to turn a withdrawn amicus curiae application into a costs ambush.
LFN stood its ground.
Goliath DJP has now recorded that the Court is functus officio and that no costs order is granted against LFN and Reyno De Beer.
That is the record.
That is the legal boomerang.
That is the story the DA and its Minister will not tell you.
But LFN will.
To our Liberators, supporters, members and every South African who still believes that justice must not be sold only to the wealthy, this moment matters. It proves again that a voluntary association without gain, without a legal army and without taxpayer funding, can still stand up against political power and the legal fraternity.
The fight continues.
And so do we.
Liberation Greetings.
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