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[1]             The appellant, De Beers Consolidated Mines (Pty) Ltd (DBCM), under a mining license granted to it by the Department of Minerals and Energy (the Department) operated an open-cast diamond mine, namely the Oaks Mine in Limpopo (the Mine), from 1998 to 2008. In November 2009, DBCM submitted a closure application for the Mine, as was required of it by the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 (the Act). Over a decade, correspondence was exchanged between the Department and DBCM concerning the closure plan for the Mine. In essence, the Department required the closure plan to include the obligation to backfill the pit, whereas DBCM resisted this requirement, in part, on the basis that it formed no part of the Environmental Management Programme that had been approved by the Department.

[2]             On 6 June 2020, the Department wrote to DBCM and adopted the position that DBCM’s closure application would ‘remain pending until the revised Closure Plan indicating how the pit will be backfilled is submitted to this Department’. In July 2020, DBCM lodged an internal appeal in terms of s 96 of the Act against the decision of the Regional Manager, Limpopo Region, of the Department (the Regional Manager), the first respondent in this appeal. The decision appealed against was framed in the following way: ‘[the] refusal to grant the application for a closure certificate lodged by DBCM on 3 November 2009 . . . unless the unlawful condition of backfilling the pit is met by DBCM . . .’ (the Regional Manager’s decision). In its appeal, DBCM sought, among others, orders setting aside the Regional Manager’s decision and the granting of DBCM’s closure application.

[3]             Before its internal appeal was decided, DBCM brought a review in the high court. The relief it sought included the following: that DBCM be exempted from the obligation to exhaust any internal remedy, as provided for in s 7(2)(c) of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000 (PAJA); a declarator that DBCM is not under any legal obligation to backfill the open pit at the Mine; setting aside the Regional Manager’s decision; and directing the Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy (the Minister and third respondent in this appeal) to grant the closure application and issue a closure certificate.