Standing on unsteady ground: AREVA NP incorporated in France v Eskom SOC LTD

Abstract

Areva NP Incorporated in France v Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd 2017 6 BCLR 675 (CC) was a dispute over a multi-billion-rand tender. Although the majority of the Constitutional Court recognised the public importance of the case, it adjudicated the dispute entirely on a preliminary point. It found that the applicant did not have legal standing to seek the judicial review of the award of the tender. This case note has three aims. First, I will argue that the Constitutional Court's majority judgment in Areva was generally unpersuasive. Second, I will attempt to show that Areva exposes an unresolved legal question: when should a court consider the merits of a case made by a litigant with questionable standing? Third, I will propose a method for resolving this question by way of substantive judicial reasoning in any given case.