Five Judgments Cannot Erase 32 Years of Fighting for Justice

Excerpt: Thirty-two years of human rights activism. Thousands of legal disputes. Five adverse judgments repeatedly used to discredit an entire lifetime of fighting for justice. Yet, despite numerous costs orders, LFN and I have never paid a single cent towards them, and our work continues. What began as a seemingly innocent WhatsApp enquiry about our Cape Peninsula baboon litigation quickly exposed a disturbing pattern of personal attacks, misinformation and what I call “litigant profiling.” But can a handful of judgments really tell the whole story? And who benefits when activists fighting for the same cause turn against one another? In this deeply personal account, I expose what happens beyond the courtroom, challenge those determined to discredit our work, and explain why neither intimidation nor public ridicule will silence LFN’s commitment to justice.

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It started with a ginger cat. It ended by exposing something far more disturbing.

On Sunday, 11 October 2026, I received a WhatsApp message (+27 69 226 6088) from someone identifying herself as Elaine, whose profile picture displayed a ginger cat.

The message was polite, professional and apparently well-intentioned.

Elaine claimed that a group of concerned citizens wanted to attend community meeting organised by the Cape Independence Party (CapExit) for Tuesday, 13 October 2026 about the Cape Peninsula baboons and wanted to encourage public participation. She asked me to provide the Constitutional Court case number relating to our latest proceedings.

A perfectly reasonable question, I thought.

But what followed became yet another extraordinary chapter in my 32 years of human rights activism.

Within the ensuing exchange, the seemingly courteous enquiry descended into personal insults, attacks on my religious beliefs, allegations of incompetence, and an extraordinary attempt to discredit almost everything I have spent my adult life working towards.

I was called an “opportunistic vulture.” I was told to “get a real job.” I was accused of being a loser, a fraud and someone whose entire existence was supposedly built upon legal failures.

At one point, my correspondent declared:

“Well by you’re standing with the courts it will be the same as your lockdown victories… Fuck all.“

Then came an extraordinary catalogue of selected court judgments, apparently assembled to prove that Liberty Fighters Network (“LFN”) and I had achieved virtually nothing in more than three decades.

My correspondent claimed to be a journalist who could not compromise her professional standing by reporting on proceedings that she could not verify.

That is a principle with which I wholeheartedly agree.

But journalism requires investigation, not intimidation. Verification requires evidence, not insults. And the inability to find a court case on a particular platform does not, by itself, establish that proceedings were never instituted.

The original request for a Constitutional Court reference was legitimate. Whether an application was lodged, accepted for filing, assigned a case number or decided are different factual and procedural questions. None should be misrepresented, including by us.

What was not legitimate was using that enquiry as the opening act of a campaign of personal abuse.

I do not know who this person really is, beyond the identity presented to me. I do not know her motives or whether she is acting independently. I certainly cannot establish merely from this exchange that she was sent by any governmental authority, political party or other interested person.

But I do recognise the method.

And after 32 years, I have a name for what increasingly happens to LFN in courtrooms and public discussions alike.

Litigant profiling.

Thirty-two years cannot be reduced to five court judgments

I began my journey into legal and human rights activism in 1994.

Since then, I have been involved in thousands of disputes. Yes, thousands.

I would gladly make that statement while connected to a polygraph. I would not expect the needle to behave any differently than if I had been asked what my name was.

But here is something the average person may not understand.

Most legal disputes are never decided by a judge.

They are resolved through negotiations, interventions, correspondence, settlements, administrative processes, or simply because one party finally does what should have been done from the beginning.

Sometimes parties reach an agreement. Sometimes a government official reverses a decision. Sometimes a bank or business withdraws its demands. Sometimes an apparent victory in court is followed by a completely different outcome months or years later.

And sometimes everybody simply moves on.

I have never maintained a scoreboard of how many court judgments favoured or prejudiced people I assisted. Nor do I claim to have won every case.

In my experience, the overwhelming majority of matters in which I became involved reached outcomes I would describe as favourable. That is my assessment of the work, not a claim that every such outcome was a recorded court victory.

I deliberately use the word “favourable.”

Any experienced legal practitioner will tell you that litigation often produces more losers than winners. A judgment may favour one side on paper, while the legal costs, damaged relationships, lost time and consequences leave everyone worse off.

Over three decades, I have witnessed people die before their cases concluded. Others emigrated, abandoned their disputes, exhausted their resources, reconciled, settled, or simply lost interest.

A judgment is a record of what a court decided at a particular moment. It is not necessarily the end of the story.

Yet in today’s world, five readily accessible adverse judgments can be circulated repeatedly until someone who has never met me, never examined our work and never spoken to a single person we have assisted becomes convinced that those judgments represent my entire life.

Think about that.

Thirty-two years.

Thousands of disputes.

Countless families, businesses, communities and individuals.

And five judgments are supposedly enough to write the final verdict on everything.

How a property manager became a threat to the comfortable

I was never trained as an attorney or advocate.

My professional background is in immovable property portfolio management, a field that unexpectedly exposed me to almost every imaginable aspect of society.

Property management is not merely about buildings, rentals and maintenance.

It brings you face to face with accounting, financial management, insurance, construction, contractual relationships, technology, government administration, human behaviour, investments, engineering, municipal systems, social conflict and the practical consequences of legislation.

The more I learned, the more I realised how many ordinary people were being overwhelmed by systems they did not understand.

And the more I became involved in helping them, the more I realised that a person without money for an attorney is often a person who cannot meaningfully exercise rights that supposedly belong to everyone.

That discovery changed the direction of my life.

I became the person someone contacted when an institution would not listen, a government department would not answer, a legal process appeared impossible to navigate, or an ordinary citizen simply needed to know what to do next.

Not because I possessed a magical ability to win cases.

But because I was prepared to investigate, learn, challenge, persist and help people represent themselves.

Eventually, this calling became central to Liberty Fighters Network.

We do not charge for our assistance.

We are not a law firm.

We rely on voluntary donations to sustain our work, and we do not expect the people we assist to reward us.

Over the years I have made enemies. Some may well despise me.

But I have also made friends whose loyalty, compassion and courage are worth more than any amount of money.

I have been threatened, followed, insulted, celebrated, ridiculed, embraced, intimidated, robbed, placed in dangerous situations and subjected to accusations that would make an extraordinary screenplay.

There have been moments when my safety was genuinely in question.

Yet I am still here.

Still married to the woman I love.

Still raising my family.

Still devoted to God.

Still living according to the moral and ethical principles that guide my life.

I choose not to consume alcohol or illicit drugs. I have no ambition to accumulate personal wealth through activism. I do not seek influence through political favours.

My family knows that the work often comes at a cost, and I make a deliberate effort not to sacrifice them to it.

I do not claim to be without flaws. No human being is.

But those who hope to discredit me should understand something important.

A person who does not seek your money, your approval, your political appointment or your social acceptance can be extraordinarily difficult to control.

And that is precisely why I believe independent activism remains so important.

The new courtroom weapon: Litigant profiling

One of the most troubling developments I have encountered is the increasing reliance upon judgments from unrelated proceedings to characterise LFN and me before a court has properly considered the facts of a new dispute.

An opponent identifies adverse findings in a previous case.

Those findings are presented to a different court.

The court is invited to look at LFN and me through the lens of those earlier criticisms.

And suddenly, instead of dealing exclusively with whether the present government decision was lawful, whether a respondent complied with legislation, or whether someone’s constitutional rights were infringed, the litigation begins to revolve around whether Reyno De Beer is the sort of person whose arguments deserve to be heard.

I call this litigant profiling.

I am not suggesting that a court may never consider a litigant’s previous conduct where it is genuinely relevant. Courts are entitled to protect their processes against proven abuse.

What I challenge is the use of adverse judicial characterisations as a substitute for examining the evidence, legal questions and relief in an entirely different case.

An adverse judgment is not a universal finding that someone is dishonest, incompetent or incapable of bringing another legitimate case.

Yet we have seen earlier judgments repeatedly invoked against us.

In the Cape Peninsula baboon proceedings, Madam Justice Melanie Holderness opened her judgment of 25 February 2026 by declaring:

“Litigation is not a game.“

She subsequently described LFN and me in terms suggesting that the courts were our “playground.“

These are judicial statements recorded in the public judgment. They are not allegations invented by me.

Likewise, the Supreme Court of Appeal’s 2021 judgment concerning our COVID-19 lockdown litigation continues to be raised against us.

And judgments arising from our challenges concerning the Expropriation Act have added further material to the collection circulated by critics.

Let me make something absolutely clear.

These adverse judgments exist. Some have imposed serious costs consequences. I do not pretend otherwise.

In 2020, Davis J delivered a judgment in our favour concerning the COVID-19 regulations. On 1 July 2021, the Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the government’s appeal and replaced that order with one dismissing the application.

That appellate outcome must be acknowledged.

But so must the original proceedings, the arguments advanced, the constitutional questions raised, and the subsequent processes through which we have pursued our objections.

A judgment remains legally effective unless and until it is set aside or otherwise altered by a competent court. I do not suggest that filing an appeal automatically reverses an adverse finding.

What I reject is the proposition that any of these judgments authorises strangers, political opponents or future litigants to portray our entire history as one uninterrupted sequence of failures.

More importantly, I reject the notion that my recent legal history should become the determining issue whenever LFN challenges an unrelated act of government.

The question before a court must remain what the law requires in the case actually before it.

Not whether the litigant is popular.

Not whether senior counsel approves of the litigant.

And certainly not whether a collection of internet commentators dislikes the litigant’s personality.

Five adverse judgments. Not one cent paid. Now explain that!

Here is something my critics conveniently overlook, and something I suspect will surprise many readers.

In 32 years of activism, notwithstanding the adverse costs orders granted against LFN and me, we have never paid a single cent towards any of those orders. Not one cent!

Why?

Because, as I explained earlier, the story does not end when a judge delivers judgment.

Matters continue. Appeals follow. Settlements are negotiated. Decisions are challenged through reviews or other legal processes. Parties reconcile. Disputes take entirely different directions. Some matters are escalated to international human rights institutions, including the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

And somewhere along that journey, what our opponents proudly advertised as a devastating victory does not necessarily produce the outcome they anticipated.

I am not suggesting that every adverse costs order was formally overturned or extinguished merely because no payment followed. Those are distinct legal questions. Nor does an appeal or international complaint automatically suspend or cancel a costs order.

But the practical reality remains: not one cent has been paid by us towards those adverse costs orders to date.

And that raises a question for everyone who so enthusiastically circulates those judgments as evidence of our supposed incompetence.

What exactly constitutes a victory?

Is it obtaining a favourable judgment that never produces the practical consequences anticipated? Or is it navigating the subsequent proceedings in a manner that enables an organisation to survive, preserve its limited resources and continue assisting thousands of ordinary people?

For LFN, the answer is obvious.

Every rand that has not been diverted from our public-interest work towards those adverse costs orders is a rand that has remained available to sustain our activities and assist others, although any legally enforceable liability must still be distinguished from an order that has been settled or set aside.

We have never claimed to be undefeated in court. But neither will we accept that an adverse judgment necessarily represents the final outcome of a dispute.

Our opponents may celebrate the judgment. We assess what happened afterwards.

And after 32 years, we are still here, still operating, and still helping ordinary people without charging them for our assistance.

That is a practical achievement which five judgments, however frequently circulated, cannot erase.

What the public is not being told

There is another side to these matters which rarely appears when adverse judgments circulate online.

We have challenged judicial findings through available legal processes. I have also pursued what I regard as extraordinary remedies, including defamation proceedings relating to statements associated with the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Judicial-conduct complaints involving three judges have been pursued through the Judicial Service Commission.

Concerns about alleged judicial misconduct and wider human-rights violations have also been raised through proceedings and communications involving the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

These are serious matters.

But I make no claim that instituting proceedings proves our allegations, that a complaint establishes misconduct, or that any judge has been found guilty simply because I challenged that judge’s conduct.

The legal standing and progress of each process must be assessed on its own record.

My point is different.

When the public sees only the adverse judgment, without the subsequent challenges, procedural history or other side of the dispute, it does not see the whole story.

A searchable judgment is a valuable public record.

It should not become a permanent character certificate determining whether a person deserves to be heard in every future legal dispute.

The proper answer to a legal argument is another legal argument.

The proper answer to evidence is contrary evidence.

And the proper answer to an alleged procedural defect is to identify that defect, explain its legal consequences and allow the competent court to determine it.

Personal vilification should never replace that process.

Then came the baboons — and the people fighting each other

In February 2026, LFN and I instituted proceedings in the Western Cape High Court concerning the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Action Plan.

The principal governmental authorities involved are the City of Cape Town, CapeNature and South African National Parks (“SANParks”), operating jointly through the Cape Peninsula Baboon Management Joint Task Team.

Our case was never merely about whether baboons should be relocated to a proposed sanctuary.

It raised broader questions concerning the lawful powers of the participating authorities, the decisions underlying the management programme, constitutional accountability, and the longstanding failure to operationalise the Office of the Commissioner for the Environment established under the Western Cape Constitution.

We sought urgent protection against potentially irreversible interventions while those wider issues could be addressed.

Part A of our application was dismissed on 25 February 2026. That decision was challenged by an application for leave to appeal, followed by further proceedings and disputes.

The issues remain far more extensive than the few lines generally appearing in public commentary about our unsuccessful interdict.

Yet something remarkable happened.

While LFN was confronting the governmental authorities in court, certain people who professed to care about the baboons began directing their energy towards questioning whether LFN and I were genuine.

I have since been informed that our litigation and credibility became subjects of discussion in a baboon-related Facebook group, with suggestions that proceedings we reported might not even exist.

I cannot independently attribute every such statement to any particular participant, nor do I suggest that everyone participating in those discussions acted maliciously.

But if such allegations are being circulated, I invite those involved to examine the source documents and put their concerns to me directly.

And I have one particularly important question.

Why would someone genuinely concerned about the baboons devote so much effort to discrediting people who are challenging the very governmental decisions that those concerned citizens oppose?

Is it personal dislike?

Is it rivalry between campaigners?

Is it the desire for recognition?

Is it disappointment that litigation has not produced an immediate victory?

Or are people simply being distracted from the actual dispute by inflammatory material that happens to be readily available online?

I do not know everyone’s motivations, and I will not invent a conspiracy to explain behaviour that may have more ordinary causes.

But I know the consequences.

When concerned citizens turn upon one another, the contested governmental programme does not automatically stop.

The DA-run City of Cape Town continues to exercise its powers.

The DA-controlled CapeNature continues its work.

SANParks, answering to a Minister from the DA, continues its work.

The baboons remain exposed to whatever consequences flow from decisions ultimately taken.

And instead of interrogating those decisions, people spend their evenings arguing about Reyno De Beer.

Who benefits from that distraction?

That is the question the public should be asking.

You want to investigate me? Please do. But investigate the whole story.

I have no objection whatsoever to scrutiny.

Investigate me.

Read the judgments.

Read the adverse findings.

Read the legal arguments.

Read the applications for leave to appeal and the challenges which followed.

Ask whether our proceedings were filed. Ask for case numbers, stamped documents, registry confirmations and court orders where these are relevant.

Investigate the people we have assisted, the disputes resolved without litigation and the causes we have pursued without expecting payment.

And where we have made mistakes, identify them accurately.

I welcome evidence-based criticism.

But do not confuse a Google search with an investigation.

Do not confuse a court judgment with a complete biography.

And do not confuse repeating an allegation with proving it.

I also challenge journalists to exercise the same diligence when reporting on the conduct of government authorities as they exercise when reporting on activists challenging them.

When the City of Cape Town, CapeNature or SANParks makes a claim, ask for the documents.

When an official says a management programme is lawful, identify the legal authority.

When a government department claims that consultation occurred, ask who participated, what objections were raised and how they were addressed.

When a proposed intervention is irreversible, demand to know whether the legal and scientific foundations have been properly examined.

That is how the public should be informed.

Not by deciding whether a government decision is lawful based on whether one happens to like or dislike the person challenging it.

I work with a few trusted people. There is a reason.

Over the years, some supporters have criticised me for not joining every committee, campaign meeting, activist coalition or WhatsApp discussion.

I understand why some see that as isolation.

But I have learned that meaningful activism is not measured by the number of meetings attended, photographs taken or public statements issued.

It is measured by what actually changes.

I choose to work independently, with a relatively small group of trusted advisers and supporters.

That does not mean I reject cooperation.

It means I value purposeful cooperation over endless discussion.

I have witnessed promising campaigns consume their own energy through personalities, rivalries, internal politics and arguments over who deserves credit.

We cannot afford that.

There is no room for a personal glory contest when families face losing their homes, ordinary citizens are denied justice, or wildlife faces interventions that cannot readily be reversed.

There is no room for “I” when the cause requires “we.”

No activist organisation owns the Constitution.

No campaigner owns the baboons.

No political party owns the environment.

And no individual should expect everyone else to surrender their independence simply because they claim to be leading a particular cause.

We can work towards the same objective through different lawful methods without becoming enemies.

That is what mature civil society should look like.

The cruelest consequence of these attacks is not what happens to me

I can withstand insults.

I have done so for decades.

I can withstand ridicule, disagreement and public criticism.

I have faced far worse than an anonymous social-media attack.

But there is one consequence that genuinely concerns me.

When people attempt to destroy the credibility of an organisation that assists vulnerable members of the public without charging for its services, they may end up harming people they have never met.

The mother fighting an unjust institutional decision.

The pensioner facing an unlawful demand.

The family struggling to understand court documents.

The community confronting a government department that refuses to account for its decisions.

The person who cannot afford professional legal representation but refuses to surrender a constitutional right.

Those are the people who matter.

For many, LFN may be among the very few sources of assistance available to them.

If the organisation becomes unable to continue its work, it will not merely be an inconvenience to me.

It may mean that someone with a legitimate grievance loses a practical avenue of assistance.

That is why I regard campaigns of deliberate misinformation against organisations doing genuine public-interest work as profoundly irresponsible.

Criticise our arguments.

Challenge our methods.

Question our decisions.

But consider the innocent people who may bear the consequences when reputational destruction replaces fair scrutiny.

And no, we do not want the baboon campaign’s money

I want to make something else perfectly clear.

LFN did not institute these proceedings because we expected donations from baboon lovers.

We did not become involved because we wanted to build a fundraising campaign around wildlife.

We did not ask the baboons to compensate us, and we certainly did not expect the people advocating for them to pay us for pursuing constitutional questions.

LFN ordinarily depends on voluntary donations to sustain its broader public-interest work.

But as far as this baboon campaign is concerned, my position is unequivocal.

We will not accept donations or offers of voluntary assistance arising from the baboon campaign.

Please do not offer them.

I do not want anyone to suggest later that our involvement was bought, that our decisions were influenced by donors associated with the dispute, or that we pursued litigation for personal financial benefit.

Our work in this matter must stand on its merits.

If we ultimately succeed in establishing a meaningful legal precedent, the public may benefit.

If we fail, we will have to account for that outcome and learn from it.

Either way, our motivation remains the same.

The law must apply to those who govern, just as it applies to those who are governed.

Here is my challenge to every South African

The next time somebody forwards you an adverse judgment about an activist, a community organisation or an ordinary person challenging authority, do not simply ask whether that person lost.

Ask what the case concerned.

Ask what the court actually decided.

Ask what happened afterwards.

Ask whether any appeal or challenge followed.

Ask whether the judgment resolves the questions now being raised in a different dispute.

And, above all, ask whether the current issue has been answered on its own merits.

In the Cape Peninsula baboon matter, ask the City of Cape Town, CapeNature and SANParks to explain and substantiate their legal authority, the relevant decisions, the supporting evidence, the alternatives considered and the consequences of irreversible interventions.

Demand transparency and accountability from every public institution.

If you are part of a community campaign, insist that allegations about other people be checked before they are circulated.

If somebody claims that a case does not exist, ask them what records were examined and whether the relevant parties were given an opportunity to respond.

If somebody wishes to attack me personally, they are welcome to disagree with my work openly and on the facts.

But do not allow the battle for constitutional accountability to become a circus of gossip, personal hostility and manufactured distractions.

Share the evidence. Challenge misinformation. Demand answers. Defend the right of ordinary people to approach the courts, even when you dislike the person exercising that right.

I cannot promise that LFN will win every case.

I cannot promise that every judge will agree with me.

And I certainly cannot promise that the coming years will be easier than the preceding 32.

But I can make one promise.

I will not abandon the principles that brought me here merely because people disapprove of me, judges criticise me, or strangers hide behind avatars to ridicule my efforts.

My faith in God, my love for my family and my commitment to helping ordinary people remain more important to me than public popularity.

I have made mistakes. I have suffered setbacks. I have encountered opponents who were better resourced and, at times, better prepared.

And I have learned from the experience.

But I am not defined by five judgments. Neither is Liberty Fighters Network.

Our story is written in the lives of people who would otherwise have faced their struggles alone.

It is written in the disputes nobody published, the assistance nobody paid for, the friendships nobody can buy and the constitutional questions that will remain important long after the personalities involved have disappeared.

To the person behind the ginger cat, and to anyone else who believes that a handful of judgments is sufficient to silence us:

You are entitled to your opinion.

You are entitled to scrutinise our record.

You are entitled to disagree with everything I stand for.

But you are not entitled to rewrite 32 years of my life simply because five judgments fit your narrative.

And to every South African who has ever been told that they cannot challenge someone more powerful, more connected, more qualified or more influential than themselves, remember this:

Respect authority, but do not allow authority to disrespect you.

Because when ordinary people surrender their right to challenge power, the Constitution becomes little more than an impressive document with no practical meaning.

That is the battle I began fighting in 1994.

That is the battle I am still fighting in 2026.

And God willing, that is the battle I will continue fighting for as long as I am able.

Thirty-two years. Thousands of disputes. Five judgments repeatedly used against us. Not one cent paid towards adverse costs orders. And one principle that remains unchanged: Justice belongs to everyone, not only those who can afford to fight for it.

Liberation Greetings.

Reyno Dawid De Beer
President: Liberty Fighters Network

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