Pretoria - Without the participation of miners, the commission probing last year's Marikana shooting would become the “Money-kana” commission, lawyer Dali Mpofu said on Thursday.
“It would be a commission for those who have money,” he said in Pretoria.
Mpofu, who acts for the miners, was pleading with commission chairman, retired judge Ian Farlam, to postpone the commission as he and his legal team were without funding.
He had provisionally withdrawn from the commission.
According to Mpofu, one of his clients said: “If they continue [the commission] without us, they shouldn't call it the Marikana commission... It is not the Marikana commission if we, the people of Marikana are not there. The people who will be left there are not from Marikana.”
Mpofu wants the commission to be put on hold pending the outcome of their efforts to get funding from the State.
He took the matter to the high court and the Constitutional Court in a bid to compel the State to fund his team several week ago.
Both courts ruled in favour of the State.
An appeal will be heard at the High Court in Pretoria on September 25 and 26.
The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the death of 44 people during strike-related unrest in Marikana in August last year.
Thirty four people - almost all striking mineworkers - were shot dead in a clash with police on August 16. Ten people, including two police officers and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
Sapa