This week, the Constitutional Court issued its ruling relating to emolument attachment orders (EAOs) – also known as garnishee orders – in a case that had been brought before the court by Stellenbosch University’s Legal Aid Clinic.
The Legal Aid Clinic represented 15 farmworkers with garnishee orders and had already won a case in the high court in July last year, but the case had been taken to the Constitutional Court on appeal.
The main issue faced by the Constitutional Court judges concerned who, within the court system, could actually issue an EAO and centred on the interpretation of section 65J(2) of the Magistrates’ Courts Act.