The Supreme Court of Appeal has just reminded the profession that preparing a record on appeal is not a box-ticking exercise. In Sondhlane v The South African Legal Practice Council (082/2025) [2025] ZASCA 78 (25 May 2026), the Court refused condonation for an attorney’s late appeal, but it reserved a separate and pointed rebuke for the way his attorneys had prepared the record, ordering them to bear those costs personally, de bonis propriis.

The setting

The applicant, formerly practising as LM Mokhele Attorneys, had been struck from the roll after misconduct involving the misappropriation of trust monies in two separate matters. He continued to practise regardless, changing his surname to Sondhlane and his practice name to match and was twice found in contempt of court. The appeal before the SCA concerned an execution order granted under s 18(3) of the Superior Courts Act 10 of 2013, which the applicant had sought to challenge some 11 months out of time. The Court refused condonation, holding that the delay was inordinate, the explanation inadequate, and that an officer of the court who had displayed such egregious contempt for court orders could not be said to deserve condonation in the interests of justice.

That much disposed of the appeal. What lifts paragraphs 46 to 48 out of the ordinary, however, is the Court’s treatment of the record itself.

What the Court found

The SCA described the record as “disorganized and shoddy,” and then set out, in unusual detail, exactly why. Cross-references had been inserted by hand into the affidavits. The pagination was sloppy and, in places, illegible. Pages were physically affixed to other pages, and paper labels bearing document names and titles had been pasted across several pages of the record.

The problems were not merely cosmetic. The record was also bloated with material that had no place in it. It contained unnecessary documents such as filing sheets, practice notes and heads of argument. At least 100 pages of volume 2 consisted of heads of argument filed in the s 18(3) application in the high court. It also included irrelevant transcripts, the argument in an application for the recusal of Van Zyl J, and the argument in the s 18(3) application itself, neither of which belonged in the appeal record.

The consequence

The Court held that the manner in which the record had been prepared failed to adhere to its rules and deviated materially from the standard expected of attorneys. That, it found, justified a de bonis propriis costs order against the applicant’s attorneys in respect of the preparation of the record. The order made was unambiguous: the applicant’s attorneys, and not the applicant, would pay the costs of preparing the record from their own funds.

A de bonis propriis order is a serious matter. It marks the Court’s disapproval not of the litigant’s position but of the legal representative’s own conduct, and it shifts the financial consequence onto the practitioner personally. The Court does not make such orders lightly, which is precisely why this one repays attention.

The takeaway for practitioners

The record is the appellate court’s working document. Its purpose is to place before the court, accurately, legibly and in proper sequence, only what the court needs to decide the appeal. A record that is illegible, padded with irrelevant material, or held together with handwritten notes and pasted labels does not merely irritate the bench; it obstructs the administration of justice and imposes unnecessary cost and delay on the other side.

Sondhlane is a reminder that the duty to prepare a compliant record rests on the attorney, that the rules of the Court set a real standard rather than an aspirational one, and that a failure to meet that standard can land on the practitioner’s own account. Paragraphs 46 to 48 are worth reading in full as a concise statement of what is expected, and of what follows when record preparation is not taken seriously.