Pretoria - The justice department will oppose an application to postpone the Farlam Commission of Inquiry, commission chairman retired judge Ian Farlam said on Thursday.
Dali Mpofu, for miners who were arrested and wounded during last year's unrest at Marikana, brought the application on Wednesday.
He requested that the hearings be put on hold until he was able to secure funding for himself and his team.
Mpofu has provisionally withdrawn from the commission due to a lack of funding.
“Continuing with the commission's work in the absence of my clients is prejudicial,” he submitted on Wednesday.
Mpofu and his team are attempting to get funding from the State.
He has taken the matter to the high court and the Constitutional Court in a bid to compel the State to fund his team. Both courts have ruled in favour of the State.
An appeal will be heard in the High Court in Pretoria on September 25 and 26.
The commission, sitting in Centurion, is investigating the deaths of 44 people in strike-related unrest at Lonmin's platinum mining operations at Marikana, in North West, last August.
Police shot dead 34 people, almost all of them striking mineworkers, on August 16, while trying to disperse and disarm them. Ten people, including two policemen and two security guards, were killed in the preceding week.
On Thursday, Mpofu told the commission that a group called “Citizens for Marikana” would try to help secure funding.
Earlier in the month, a ceremony marking the first anniversary since the 34 miners were killed was held in Rustenburg.
During the event, miners passed around a bucket for contributions towards their legal fees.
The money, which was mostly in coins, came to a total of R17 201, said Mpofu.
On Thursday, Mpofu's clients packed the auditorium where the hearing was being held, waiting to hear whether they would be granted the postponement.
Some of them wore the green, yellow, and black T-shirts of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union.
Mpofu was also dressed in similar colours. He wore a black suit over a bright green shirt and yellow tie.
The commission continues.
Sapa