Peter Magosi, Director General of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS), has returned to the High Court seeking to overturn or amend a default judgment awarded in favor of 407 public officers pursuing salary progression back-pay claims.
The application comes more than two years after the order was granted by former High Court judge Dr. Zein Kebonang, with the government arguing that the ruling is too vague to implement. Magosi, together with the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) and the Attorney General, wants the matter reopened and heard through a full trial.
Court documents filed on July 24, 2026, state that the applicants are asking the High Court to rescind, or alternatively vary, the June 3, 2024 default judgment, which declared the government’s refusal to pay employees’ salary progression back pay unlawful. The original case was brought by Pelotsweu Masilomangwe and 406 other plaintiffs against the DPSM, the DIS, and the Attorney General.
In his founding affidavit, Magosi argues that while the government has respected the court order, it believes the judgment is fundamentally defective because it lacks clarity and cannot be practically enforced. He says the order “merely reproduced the plaintiffs’ claims without explaining the legal reasoning behind the conclusions reached.”
According to Magosi, the judgment fails to specify critical issues, including whether the back pay should be calculated from 2001 or April 2008, the exact amounts owed, and which employees qualify for payment. He maintains that the uncertainty has made compliance impossible, describing the order as “ambiguous, obscure and incapable of implementation.”
Magosi further argues that Directive No.10 of 2001 and Directive No.6 of 2008 did not create an automatic entitlement to salary progression. Instead, he contends that salary progression depended on employee performance and qualification; requirements the plaintiffs did not plead before obtaining the default judgment.
The DIS chief also says the disputed ruling has triggered years of additional litigation, including contempt proceedings that were later rescinded, while negotiations aimed at resolving implementation have failed because of uncertainty surrounding the judgment. He insists that varying or rescinding the order would provide legal certainty without prejudicing either party and allow the dispute to be fully determined through a trial.
The application is likely to revive one of the government’s most contentious public service remuneration disputes and raises difficult questions about the balance between procedural justice and finality in litigation. While the government argues that the judgment is too ambiguous to execute, critics may question why it took more than two years to seek its rescission despite acknowledging that implementation challenges surfaced almost immediately after the order was granted.
The prolonged delay risks reinforcing perceptions of administrative indecision and could further postpone relief for hundreds of employees who have already spent years pursuing the matter through the courts. At the same time, if the judgment genuinely lacks sufficient detail to determine who qualifies for payment, how much is owed, and from which date calculations should begin, a trial may be the only practical avenue to resolve the factual and legal disputes comprehensively.
Whatever the outcome, the case highlights the costly consequences of unclear court orders in complex employment disputes, where uncertainty can generate successive rounds of litigation, increase legal costs for taxpayers, and delay justice for public servants seeking long-awaited salary progression benefits.