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Pieter van der Westhuizen, elder brother of late rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen, and his father, Gustav, left the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Monday saying they’re satisfied that justice has been served.
After a protracted legal struggle between Pieter and Amor Vittone, Joost’s estranged wife, the court on Monday ruled that the will Joost had drawn up in 2015 with the help of his lawyer, Ferdinand Hartzenberg, was indeed his last will and testament. In the 2015 will Joost’s children inherit everything and Amor is practically disowned.
After his death Amor contested the 2015 will, arguing that the will she and Joost drew up in 2009 was his last valid will.
"I’m happy. Very happy. Now I can finally say I’d honoured my promise to my brother," a visibly relieved Pieter, 49, told YOU on Monday after the court verdict.
"I maintain we’re not the ones who’ve ‘won’. It was never our fight. We were there to fulfil Joost’s last wishes and those were that the money should go to his children and only his children."
The contest over Joost’s estate started shortly after his death of motor neuron disease on February 6, 2017.
Pieter, his younger brother, Gustav Jnr, and their friend Gavin Varejes from SA Rugby Legends were appointed as trustees of Joost’s J9 Foundation. A monthly maintenance amount was to be paid from the trust to Amor for costs involving Joost’s underaged son and daughter. The trust will be dissolved when their daughter, the youngest of the two, turns 21.
Pieter says in 2014 Joost met with him to talk about the way forward. It was his wish at the time that his will be amended.
"[Amor and her legal team] argued in court that Joost hadn’t been compos mentis at the time, in other words not fully in charge of his mental faculties. But on the day of his death Joost had made the decision whether he wanted a tracheotomy [to help him breathe] or not. He and he alone could make that decision."
A tracheotomy is a motor neuron disease sufferer’s last resort. A breathing tube is inserted into the patient’s throat so they can breathe with the help of a ventilator.
"Joost had decided against it that day," Pieter says, adding that he’d been the one to convey his brother’s wishes to his doctors.
