Alan Winde

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.