Excerpt: LFN has taken the Cape Peninsula baboon battle to the Constitutional Court after months of urgent litigation failed to secure effective protection against potentially irreversible sanctuary relocation. The breaking point came when all three pending High Court leave-to-appeal applications were set down for 18 September 2026 on extremely short notice, only for the hearing to be postponed into the fourth term because final typed judgments and professional transcripts were still unavailable, while no corresponding protection was put in place to preserve the baboons’ free-ranging status. With the authorities still able to move ahead while the appeals remain unresolved, LFN says it has “run out of road while the authorities keep moving”, and has now launched two urgent Constitutional Court applications seeking direct appellate relief and temporary protection to prevent the baboons from being irreversibly captured, removed and permanently confined before the constitutional and legality disputes are finally decided.
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There are moments in litigation when patience is responsible.
There are moments when allowing the ordinary court process to run its course is exactly what respect for the judicial system requires.
And then there comes a moment when waiting itself becomes the danger.
For Liberty Fighters Network, that moment arrived on 17 September 2026.
By then, the Cape Peninsula baboon case had been grinding through the Western Cape High Court for more than seven months. Applications had been filed. Judgments had been delivered. Appeals had been launched. Urgent approaches had been made. Case-management intervention had been sought. A recusal application had been argued. Further applications for leave to appeal had been prepared.
All the while, the very government programme challenged in the litigation continued moving forward.
And the baboons cannot appeal after they have already been captured, removed from their natural home ranges and permanently confined.
That is why, today, 21 September 2026, LFN took the extraordinary step of instituting two urgent and related applications in the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
Before those applications were lodged at the Constitutional Court, the papers were already served this morning upon the principal authorities directly affected by the relief sought — including Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, Western Cape Minister Anton Bredell, SANParks, CapeNature and the City of Cape Town.
This was not an ambush.
It was the culmination of months of trying to make the ordinary process work.
And what happened around the aborted hearing of 18 September 2026 explains why LFN concluded that we had finally run out of road.
The case was never simply about a “baboon sanctuary”
That description is too convenient.
The dispute began with a far more serious constitutional question.
The Western Cape Constitution created an Office of the Commissioner for the Environment. Yet when LFN sought to invoke environmental oversight in relation to the Final Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Action Plan, there was no appointed Commissioner available to perform that constitutional function.
The High Court proceedings therefore concern not only what happens to the baboons, but whether major and potentially irreversible environmental decisions may continue while the constitutional oversight office established for environmental protection remains effectively unavailable.
LFN’s original case was deliberately divided into two parts.
Part A was the emergency brake.
It sought temporary preservation of the existing position so that baboon troops would not be captured, removed, relocated, confined, subjected to other irreversible interventions or placed beyond effective judicial protection before the deeper constitutional issues could be decided. The High Court judgment itself records that the relief extended to capture, removal, relocation or confinement of baboon troops and agreements or infrastructure connected with sanctuary confinement.
Part B is the larger constitutional fight.
It concerns, amongst other things, the continued non-operationalisation of the Commissioner for the Environment and the lawfulness and oversight of the structures and decisions driving the baboon-management programme.
That distinction remains fundamental.
LFN was not asking the High Court in February to determine every aspect of baboon management overnight.
We were saying something much simpler:
Do not make the case pointless before the case can be decided.
Then Part A was dismissed
The urgent application was heard on 19 February 2026.
Holderness J dismissed it on 25 February 2026.
LFN immediately chose the ordinary appellate route. An Application for Leave to Appeal against the whole judgment and order was delivered on 2 March 2026.
From there, however, something deeply problematic happened.
The urgent case stopped moving urgently.
The original application had been brought precisely because time mattered. Yet the application for leave to appeal remained unresolved for more than six months.
During those same months, the implementation LFN had tried to prevent from overtaking the case continued advancing.
By September, the issue was no longer theoretical.
The Constitutional Court papers record that the Waterfall troop was scheduled for permanent removal from its natural home range and relocation to the Kogelfontein sanctuary from approximately 12 September 2026. The move did not proceed on that date, but it was postponed rather than abandoned.
In other words, the countdown did not disappear.
The date merely moved.
Then came the recusal battle
While the original appeal remained unresolved, the proceedings developed another serious constitutional dimension: whether Holderness J should continue exercising judicial functions in the matter.
That dispute culminated in an urgent recusal application.
On 28 August 2026, Holderness J dismissed that application. A separate costs determination followed.
LFN regarded both decisions as appealable and, on 8 September 2026, delivered two further protective Applications for Leave to Appeal.
So, by September, there were three separate leave-to-appeal applications awaiting determination:
the original Part A application arising from the 25 February 2026 judgment;
the application arising from the 28 August 2026 recusal judgment; and
the application arising from the separate 28 August 2026 costs judgment and consequential restrictions affecting Part B.
And then, finally, something happened.
Three appeals. One hearing. Three days’ notice.
On 15 September 2026, Holderness J directed that all three Applications for Leave to Appeal be heard on 18 September 2026.
That meant three substantial appellate applications, involving judgments stretching back to February and two further ex tempore judgments delivered on 28 August, were suddenly to be argued approximately three days later.
The Constitutional Court record states that the date was imposed without first canvassing LFN’s availability. LFN objected to the compressed timetable but nevertheless rearranged its affairs and confirmed that it would comply and be ready to proceed.
This is important.
LFN did not ask for the 18 September hearing to disappear.
Quite the opposite.
We had spent months demanding that the appeal process move.
When the Court eventually said, in effect, “Friday”, we prepared for Friday.
There was also a very human cost.
The papers record that Reyno De Beer had a serious pre-existing family commitment. That commitment was cancelled and arrangements were changed because, despite the extremely short notice, the Applicants were determined to make the hearing happen.
After months of waiting, 18 September was finally going to be the day when the three appellate applications would be put before the Court.
And then the wheels came off.
The judgments needed for the hearing did not yet exist in final form
There was an extraordinary problem.
The final typed versions of the two ex tempore judgments delivered on 28 August 2026 had still not been provided to the parties.
Nor were the professional transcripts available.
LFN had already anticipated this problem.
On 8 September 2026, when filing its two protective leave applications, LFN had used the available court audio to prepare working transcripts of the hearing and both judgments, expressly recording that these were working documents subject to correction against the eventual official record. The Applicants were prepared to authenticate their preparation and source under oath.
In other words, LFN did not sit around waiting for perfect paperwork.
We built the best available record so that the urgent appellate process could continue.
Then came a remarkable development.
The attorneys acting for the City and CapeNature advised that they regarded the typed judgments and transcripts as “indispensable” for purposes of preparing for the leave-to-appeal hearing. They said there was insufficient time to prepare for all three applications by the morning of 18 September 2026 and proposed postponement.
Their communication recorded that Inlexo had advised that Holderness J had requested the judgments to be produced, but that they were not yet available. Even if the judgments arrived by the close of business on Thursday, the professional transcripts would follow only thereafter.
Consider the position.
An urgent case had already spent more than six months in appellate limbo.
A baboon relocation operation had reached the point of having a contemplated implementation date.
LFN had repeatedly pressed for urgency.
Three appeal applications were eventually set down with barely three days’ notice.
LFN accepted the impossible timetable and prepared to proceed.
Then the hearing could not conveniently proceed because the official products of the 28 August 2026 hearing had themselves not yet become available.
That was not a delay created by LFN.
And then 18 September vanished
On the morning of 17 September 2026, one day before the hearing, the Court postponed the matter into the fourth term.
Not by a few hours.
Not merely until the next day.
The hearing for which LFN had fought, reorganised its affairs and prepared under intense pressure was removed, and the parties were directed to find a later date.
The Constitutional Court papers record that the City and CapeNature had sought postponement because the written judgments and professional transcripts were unavailable, while SANParks indicated availability for later dates.
That postponement created the crisis which now sits before the Constitutional Court.
Because the Court postponed the appeals —
but nothing was ordered to pause the irreversible implementation outside the courtroom.
That is the heart of this entire story.
The court case was paused. The authorities were not.
Immediately after receiving the postponement directive, LFN objected.
We recorded that we had been ready to proceed.
We recorded again that the baboons could be captured and relocated at any time.
We asked for an undertaking that no irreversible sanctuary implementation would occur while the appeal process remained delayed.
We reserved the right to approach the appropriate Court urgently.
The Constitutional Court papers state that, as at the signing of the founding affidavit, no preservation undertaking had been furnished by all of the relevant implementing respondents.
That changed the equation completely.
Because postponing an ordinary commercial dispute may simply mean that the parties return to court later.
But you cannot deal with irreversible environmental action in the same way.
A free-ranging troop can be captured once.
It can be transported once.
Its status can be permanently changed once.
After that, a later appellate judgment may be intellectually satisfying and legally important — but practically useless.
LFN put that problem starkly in the papers: the urgency is directed at maintaining the practical utility of adjudication, because once the factual subject matter has been irreversibly changed, a later court may no longer be able to restore the status quo Part A was designed to preserve.
That is when “we have run out of road” stopped being rhetoric.
It became a procedural fact.
Why the Constitutional Court — and why two applications?
The Constitutional Court is not being asked to deal with two copies of the same case.
The two proceedings are deliberately separate because they arise from different judgments and require different appellate treatment.
The first is the companion application concerning the original Part A judgment of 25 February 2026.
That case goes back to the beginning: whether the interim protection sought by LFN should have been refused while the disputed programme remained capable of irreversible implementation.
The application explains that LFN invoked the ordinary appellate process almost immediately on 2 March 2026, but that the leave application remained unresolved for more than six months. The postponement of the 18 September hearing then materially altered the position and created the need for the direct Constitutional Court approach.
The second application deals with the two decisions of 28 August 2026.
It seeks direct leave to appeal against the recusal ruling and the separate costs decision, together with urgent procedural and preservation relief.
Most importantly for the baboons, that application asks the Constitutional Court to restrain the relevant implementing authorities, pending determination of the litigation, from taking materially irreversible steps towards permanent relocation and sanctuary confinement — including capture for that purpose, removal, transportation into permanent confinement and irreversible alteration of the troops’ free-ranging status.
It expressly excludes genuine emergency veterinary or animal-welfare interventions necessary to prevent imminent death, serious injury or suffering.
So this is not about tying the hands of veterinarians.
It is about tying the hands of irreversibility until the law has spoken.
The DA cannot simply watch from the sidelines
LFN’s criticism of the political authorities is equally direct.
The Western Cape Government is headed by Premier Alan Winde, who remains the provincial executive authority.
The litigation directly cites the Premier and provincial Minister Anton Bredell alongside SANParks, CapeNature and the City because the constitutional and environmental questions cross provincial, conservation and municipal structures.
Our criticism is not that a government may never make difficult wildlife-management decisions.
It plainly must.
Our criticism is that government cannot insist on pressing forward with potentially irreversible implementation while the very legality, constitutional oversight and judicial protection surrounding that implementation remain unresolved.
That criticism is especially serious where the constitutional Commissioner for the Environment — the very office around which a substantial part of this litigation revolves — remains without an appointed incumbent.
A government cannot celebrate constitutionalism when it is convenient and treat a constitutionally established environmental oversight office as optional when citizens actually need it.
And political accountability does not disappear because officials operate through statutory bodies, joint task teams, lawyers and administrative structures.
The Premier, Minister, City, SANParks and CapeNature now have the Constitutional Court papers.
They know precisely what LFN says.
They know precisely what is being asked.
And they know precisely why.
Even the SPCA has drawn a line
There is another fact the public deserves to know.
The Cape of Good Hope SPCA has stated that it does not support placing healthy, wild-caught, free-ranging baboons in sanctuary confinement as a long-term management solution.
It has made clear that welfare monitoring of capture or handling should not be confused with endorsement of permanent sanctuary relocation.
That does not decide the litigation.
Nor does LFN claim that it does.
But it demonstrates that concerns about permanent confinement are serious enough to exist entirely independently of LFN’s constitutional case.
This litigation has been built the hard way
People often see a court document only after it has been stamped and filed.
They see the first page.
They see the names.
They see the heading.
What they do not see are the hundreds of hours behind it.
They do not see the late nights reconstructing ex tempore judgments from court audio because official versions are not yet available.
They do not see the cross-checking of dates and correspondence.
They do not see the annexures.
They do not see the emergency notices.
They do not see the applications filed simply to keep earlier applications alive.
They do not see an urgent hearing suddenly appear with three days’ notice.
They do not see personal commitments abandoned because the Court says the case will finally be heard.
And they do not see the frustration when, after preparing for that hearing, the process is postponed once again while the thing you are trying to save remains exposed outside the courthouse.
LFN is a voluntary association without gain.
We do not have a state legal department.
We do not have the City’s resources.
We do not have SANParks’ institutional legal machinery.
We do not have CapeNature’s public resources.
Yet this morning, those institutions and political office-bearers received papers telling them that this fight has now reached the Constitutional Court of South Africa.
That did not happen because the road was easy.
It happened because we kept walking after every apparent end of it.
There is one question the authorities still have to answer
If the sanctuary programme is lawful, rational, constitutionally compliant and capable of surviving judicial scrutiny, then why should preserving the position temporarily be intolerable?
Why must irreversible implementation outrun the courts?
That is ultimately the question.
LFN is not asking the Constitutional Court to manage baboons.
LFN is asking the Constitutional Court to preserve the ability of courts to meaningfully decide a live constitutional dispute before government action transforms it into history.
There is a world of difference.
We have run out of road — but we have not run out of law
The ordinary appellate road has not produced effective protection in time.
That is not because LFN failed to use it.
We used it.
We used it repeatedly.
We filed the original appeal application on 2 March 2026.
We pursued case management.
We litigated recusal.
We filed two more leave applications.
We prepared working transcripts when official judgments were unavailable.
We accepted three days’ notice for a hearing of all three appeals.
We prepared to appear on 18 September 2026.
And when that hearing was postponed on 17 September 2026, we asked for one thing that would have allowed the ordinary process to continue safely:
Preserve the subject matter.
That protection did not materialise.
So now the matter is before the apex Court.
That is the “last resort”.
Not bypassing the system.
Exhausting ourselves trying to make the system move before events make the system irrelevant.
The respondents are entitled to oppose the applications.
The Constitutional Court will decide whether urgency, direct access, condonation, leave to appeal and interim relief are justified.
Nothing about filing these papers predetermines that outcome.
But there is one outcome LFN is no longer prepared to accept silently:
That everybody debates procedure for months while the baboons disappear behind a fence — and only afterwards asks whether it should ever have happened.
First let the law speak.
Then let government act.
Not the other way around.
For the Waterfall troop and every other troop that may follow, that distinction may be everything.
LFN has taken the baboon battle to the Constitutional Court.
And this time, the question is no longer merely whether the authorities may move the baboons.
It is whether they should be permitted to move faster than justice itself.
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