JOHANNESBURG – It has come to our attention that SANRAL’s CFO, Ms Inge Mulder has made a claim that the courts will easily cope with the volumes of e-toll prosecutions SANRAL intends bringing at some time in the future, citing the “rollup” of offences into a single summons as her reasoning for this.
Whilst it is true that SANRAL may indeed, through the clerk of the court, issue a single summons to an INDIVIDUAL – citing multiple counts of the same offence, it is NOT true that “bulk decisions will be made” against similar cases as was suggested by John Robbie and agreed with by Ms Mulder.
Each and every offender will HAVE TO be summonsed INDIVIDUALLY for their own matter and the normal criminal justice system and procedures will apply in line with the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Act. Ms Mulder also said that the courts could “process a huge amount of them every day” and this is somewhat optimistic, given the current workload on the courts.
Ms Mulder has stated that, of the 2.5 million daily road users – which could equate to a much higher actual number of vehicles, given that both SANRAL and the Minister of Transport have said that not all vehicles/users use the GFIP every day – 1.2 million have registered with SANRAL.
She then cites this as limiting the amount of individuals that will have to be summonsed and prosecuted but seems to forget that this still leaves 1.3 million users at minimum who are NOT registered. If a mere 10% of those people do not pay, then 130,000 INDIVIDUAL summonses will have to be issued and served and those who don’t pay admission of guilt fines – thereby automatically incurring a criminal record – will have to be tried in court.
The collective lower (Magistrates) courts in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni simply cannot deal with such volumes and even if they could, Magistrates whose pensions are invested in SANRAL e-tolls bonds would be hard-pressed to demonstrate their impartiality in these matters and hence, why they should not recuse themselves from presiding over the matters.
JPSA has repeatedly stated that the South African criminal justice system, let alone the courts in Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni cannot deal with the volume of e-tolls prosecutions that will have to ensue at some stage or another and we maintain this stance.
We also maintain our stance that the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act applies in the jurisdictions of the JMPD and the TMPD and to date, despite having referred the matter to the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development after an initial dismissive response by SANRAL’s attorneys, the Minister of Transport has still failed to answer our lawyer’s letter dated 26 November 2013 and subsequent letters thereafter.
Whatever happens, a “test case” will have to be brought before the High Court to establish whether the methodology behind e-toll prosecutions is correct and indeed, whether defaulters may be prosecuted in the manner that SANRAL is proposing. Zwelinzima Vavi, Mark Heywood, Bishop Geoff Davies, Wayne Duvenage, Father Mike Deeb, Kay Sexwale and Howard Dembovsky have all invited such a test case by refusing to pay e-tolls but it remains to be seen whether SANRAL and the NPA has the guts to take these offers up.
So in summary – this is the process that will HAVE TO be followed by SANRAL:
- Issue final demands and deliver them by REGISTERED mail;
- If ignored, gather each count into a summons in terms of Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Act (Act 51 of 1977) for EACH INDIVIDUAL;
- Get court dates for each of the individual summonses;
- Have the Sheriff , a traffic officer or a policeman serve summonses on individuals;
- Have the matter heard in a competent and unbiased criminal Court.
ONLY if an individual pays an admission of guilt fine or is found guilty in court will they get a criminal record.
The 702 interview can be heard here.
Best Regards,
Howard Dembovsky
National Chairman – Justice Project South Africa (NPC)