Judgment has been reserved in the Pretoria High Court appeal case in which environmental group Biowatch South Africa is seeking to overturn a potentially devastating costs order against it in an earlier ruling.

The case is being closely watched by environmental and other NGOs as the outcome could significantly affect legal action by them in the future.

Biowatch, a lobby group opposed to the genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture and the environment, appealed against an earlier court order to pay the legal costs of the South African component of transnational seed and chemical giant Monsanto.

The costs order, which raised legal eyebrows, was made against Biowatch during its successful application for a High Court order forcing the Department of Agriculture to provide access to information on the basis for the department's decisions on permitting GMO crops. Monsanto argued it had to protect confidential information.

In February 2005, Acting Judge Eric Dunn ordered that Biowatch rightly be granted access to almost all the information it had requested.

But instead of the general principle that costs should follow the outcome of litigation, he ordered Biowatch to pay Monsanto's legal costs.

On Monday, Biowatch counsel Richard Moultrie told a full Bench that Dunn had not considered that it was a non-profit body acting in the public interest. Judgment was reserved.