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The Constitutional Court on Tuesday dismissed an application by the Ngwathe local municipality for leave to appeal against a 2025 high court order to dissolve the municipal council.
The Constitutional Court dismissed the application with costs, saying it bore no reasonable prospects of success.
AfriForum, which brought the high court application for the dissolution of the municipal council, said it has achieved a significant final victory in its service delivery case against the Free State municipality.
AfriForum filed an application with the Bloemfontein high court in May 2024 requesting that the municipality be placed under provincial administration due to a service delivery crisis.
In a judgment passed in June 2025, judge Johannes Daffue ruled that the Ngwathe municipality was not fulfilling its constitutional, legal and administrative obligations towards the residents of Parys, Heilbron, Koppies and Vredefort, among other areas.
He ordered the municipal council to be dissolved and the immediate intervention by the Free State provincial government.
The municipality tried to appeal against the decision without success, turning first to the Supreme Court of Appeal and then to the Constitutional Court.
“Today’s Constitutional Court ruling is the final nail in the coffin of a municipality where service delivery has long since ceased. Years of systemic shortcomings in this municipality have led to the delivery of contaminated water, repeated sewage spills, financial insolvency and poor management,” AfriForum’s regional co-ordinator for the Mooi River district Alta Pretorius said.
Pretorius said after years of opposition and a legal battle that lasted more than a year, the municipality must now finally give up the fight and make way for the recovery of Parys and other towns in the municipality.
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