AUTHOR: GERARD VADIVALU
PUBLICATION DATE: SEPTEMBER 4, 2025
The Prescription Act 68 of 1969 sets out, inter alia, time periods for when a debt (for instance, an amount of money owed) shall be extinguished by prescription.
Our courts have held that the purpose of prescription is primarily the need for certainty, finality and to ensure the quality of adjudication, having regard to changes in cultural values, scientific knowledge, societal interests, or public policy, which may occur over the course of several years.
The Prescription Act makes provision for the interruption of prescription in certain circumstances, for instance by judicial interruption.
Section 15(1) provides for the interruption of prescription by the service on the debtor of any process whereby the creditor claims payment of the debt. Section 15(6) refers to process as including, inter alia, “any document whereby legal proceedings are commenced”.
The phrase, “any document whereby legal proceedings are commenced” has been interpreted broadly by the courts[i], however, the question that arises in the context of this article is whether an application made to the CSOS Ombud, in terms of the Community Schemes Ombud Service Act 9 of 2011 (“the CSOS Act”), interrupts the running of prescription under section 15.
As a starting point, the CSOS Act does not expressly state that an application made for dispute resolution to the CSOS Ombud interrupts the running of prescription.
Compare this, for instance, to section 27(2) of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act 37 of 2002, concerning referral of complaints to the Ombud for Financial Services Providers, which provides, “Official receipt of a complaint by the Ombud suspends the running of prescription in terms of the Prescription Act, 1969 (Act 68 of 1969), for the period after such receipt of the complaint until the complaint has either been withdrawn, or determined by the Ombud or the board of appeal, as the case may be.”.
The CSOS Act does not contain a similar provision.
The absence of clarity on this question would allow a respondent to, for instance, raise the argument that an application for dispute resolution made to the CSOS Ombud does not interrupt the running of prescription, and that as a result an applicant’s claim has prescribed (a claim that falls outside the stipulated periods in the Prescription Act).
There are, however, features of a judicial process in regard to the CSOS proceedings, where for instance referring an application for dispute resolution to the CSOS Ombud for relief contemplated by the Act activates the jurisdiction of the CSOS Ombud where the CSOS Ombud is obliged to conciliate and then adjudicate the dispute, that legal representation could be permitted in certain circumstances, and that an adjudication order for the payment of an amount of money must be enforced as if it were a judgment of the court.
While these aspects are suggestive of legal proceedings having commenced, there is at this stage no express provision that an application made to the CSOS Ombud interrupts the running of prescription in terms of section 15(1) of the Prescription Act.
ⁱFood & Allied Workers Union on behalf of Gaoshubelwe vs Pieman’s Pantry (Pty) Ltd (2018) 39 ILJ 1213 (CC) at para 195.
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Email: gerard.vadivalu@gb.co.za