MAURITIUS: An Introduction to Dispute Resolution

The Supreme Court is presently constituted of 27 judges including the Chief Justice and the Senior Puisne Judge. The number of judges went from 21 to 24 in 2023 and from 24 to 27 in 2024. The increasing number of judges has certainly assisted in clearing, to some extent, the backlog of cases and appeal cases at the Supreme Court.

Following the general elections held in November 2024, the newly elected government, with a view to promoting access to justice, contemplates setting up a superior court of appeal established to hear appeals from the Supreme Court and arbitral tribunals as well as introducing new legislation aimed at reviewing the criminal justice system in Mauritius, judicial review applications and criminal appeals, among others.

In parallel, with a view to effectively deal with situations such as the one created by the unexpected emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the judiciary aims at computerising the Land Division as well as cases which are heard before a judge in Chambers and the registry of the Supreme Court. Implementation will be carried out in a phased approach with the introduction of an e-filing system for cases which are heard before the Land Division.

The e-filing system is a robust system which is currently only applied in the Commercial Division of the Supreme Court through the e-judiciary platform. With the extension of the e-filing system to other divisions of the Supreme Court, physical presence of law practitioners in court for procedural matters will be significantly reduced.

The e-filing system has been beneficial to law practitioners and the judiciary alike in terms of accessibility, convenience and speed. For instance, the e-filing system is not restricted by the business hours of the courts and digital storage of case files allows users of the system to retrieve relevant documents instantly. The system enables a speedy delivery of Orders by the Commercial Division, which take an average time of two days for an Order to be delivered for over 85% of requests filed via the platform.

The judiciary contemplates equipping at least one courtroom in each District Court with a Video Conferencing system to allow for remote hearings.

Some significant judgments have been delivered by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) and the Supreme Court in various areas of the law.

For instance, in the case of Pyaneandee v Paul Lam Shang Leen [2024] UKPC 27, the Board dealt with an appeal arising out of a report prepared following a Commission of Inquiry on Drug Trafficking in Mauritius (the “Report”). Essentially, the Board held that considerable harm to a person’s professional standing and reputation can flow, not only from findings of a commission but also from allegations or adverse comment set out in an inquiry report, and this too may justify the conclusion that the impugned report is amenable to judicial review. The test is whether a fair-minded, detached and objective reader would conclude that passages in an inquiry report however they might be described (whether as findings, observations, comments, remarks or recitals of evidence), either form a component part of an adverse decision affecting an individual or adversely affect an individual’s reputation. The Board was also satisfied that the appellant was not informed of the gist of the case which he had to answer or shown the relevant material in relation to the allegations identified. In concluding that the impugned passages in the Report were amenable to judicial review, the Board ordered that they should be disregarded and a link to the judgment be inserted on the relevant page of the Report as it is published on the internet.

In February 2005, a robbery took place at the Mauritius Commercial Bank Ltd, Port Louis, during which an employee of the bank was killed. Subsequently, Mr Ruhumatally was charged with murder and his trial began. After he was found guilty, he was convicted to undergo penal servitude for 42 years. In Ruhumatally v The State [2024] UKPC 15, the Board held that in order to convict the appellant of murder, the jury had to be sure both that he intended to kill the employee and that the killing was premeditated. Although the robbery had long been planned, there was no evidence that the robbers had planned in advance that they would kill anyone. The Board also found that the judge, in his summing up, misstated the evidence to the jury and that it was important for the judge to be accurate when reminding the jury of the evidence about what the appellant did to the employee. The Board declared the trial a nullity and ordered a fresh hearing.

In the case of Lafresière v New Mauritius Hotels Ltd [2023] UKPC 38 relating to employment law, the Board agreed with the reasoning adopted by the Supreme Court on appeal and held that the conclusion of the Supreme Court was intended to make clear to employers that they must properly plead the reasons for the dismissal of the employee and that those reasons must be the same as the reasons given at the time of the dismissal and, further, to make clear to those presiding in Industrial Courts that they must focus their fact finding exercise on those reasons.

The case of Eco-Sud v Ministry of Environment [2024] UKPC 19 is an interesting case in the area of environmental law. In relation to the standing requirement in the Environment Protection Act 2002, the Board held that it should not be used to filter out arguable environmental issues. Quoting another case, the Board also stated that there are environmental issues that can properly be raised by an individual which do not personally affect an applicant’s private interests as the environment is of legitimate concern to everyone and someone must speak up on behalf of the animals that may be affected. With regard to “prejudice”, the Board held that prejudice under the enactment is not confined to economic prejudice and prejudice to a private interest. Persons with a genuine interest in aspects of the environment that they seek to protect and who have sufficient knowledge of the subject will be able to show that a decision to approve the issue of an Environmental Impact Assessment licence is likely to cause them undue prejudice in relation to their interest in that aspect of the environment.

In declining to grant an application to set aside in whole or in part an arbitral award delivered under the International Arbitration Act, the Supreme Court in Laxmanbhai & Co (Mauritius) Ltd v Minaco (Pty) Ltd [2025] SCJ 21 has shown its reticence, especially after the judgment delivered in Betamax Ltd v State Trading Corporation [2021] UKPC 14, in interfering with the principles of non-interventionism which is at the heart of the enactment and which was made clear in the Travaux Préparatoires to the International Arbitration Act 2008.