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VAN HEERDEN AJ whether the submissions which the applicant for intervention seeks to advance raise substantially new contentions that may assist the Court.

The Starke sisters submit that the relief sought by Mr Gory in his application for confirmation has a direct and substantial effect on their rights as well as on the rights of Mr Bell. If the confirmation application were to succeed and it were later to be determined that Mr Bell and their late brother were, at the time of the latter’s death, partners in a permanent same-sex life partnership in which they had undertaken reciprocal duties of support, then the Starke sisters would retrospectively lose the rights to their brother’s estate which vested in them as intestate heirs in November 2005 when their brother died.

Mr Gory takes issue with the contention by the Starke sisters that their right to inherit the estate of their late brother vested in them upon his death. According to Mr Gory, as any legislation which is inconsistent with the Constitution became invalid from the moment the relevant provisions of the Constitution or of the legislation came into effect (whichever is the later date) and not from the moment of the court’s order, the challenged provisions of section 1(1) of the Act became invalid, at the