Outa loses court bid to have Aarto Act declared unconstitutional

Reading Time: 2 minutes

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) lost its court bid to have the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act declared unconstitutional.

Outa launched a legal bid at the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria in January 2022 to declare the act unconstitutional and invalid and won.

Former Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula and the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) appealed the ruling at the Constitutional Court.

Today Chief Justice Raymond Zondo ruled in favour of the Act.

The Act will penalise traffic violations, legalise fines via email and introduce a demerit system, that will see repeated offenders licenses being revoked.

OUTA responds to ConCourt’s ruling on Aarto Act: Wayne Duvenage:

Outa brought an application calling on the ConCourt to confirm the Pretoria High Court’s judgment of November 2022 that the Aarto legislation was unconstitutional and invalid.

The disputed legislation is the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Act of 1998 (Aarto) and the Aarto Amendment Act of 2019, which brought certain aspects of the Aarto Act into effect.

The ConCourt judgment written by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo was unanimous.

Outa’s Executive Director, Adovate Stefanie Fick believes the ruling is detrimental to South Africans.

“Outa believes that measures to improve safety and reduce fatalities are urgently needed. However, we don’t believe that the Aarto Act will achieve this. It is just not practically possible. South Africa needs an effective process enabled by fair adjudication that comply with the constitution.”

Outa’s CEO, Wayne Duvenage, holds the view that the Act will not be implemented properly, as it will entice those in power to extort motorists and breed corruption.

“Let me put it you in this context; somebody can drive on your number plate, giving you fines because it’s easy to clone number plates and this was a problem with e-tolls. So, you can pick up the fines, which you don’t know because you don’t receive them, because you are not getting your post. You go and get your license and they say, ‘sorry, you got demerit points against you. We can’t renew your license.’ You happen to be a sales rep. You can no longer do your job, you lose your job, and you lose your livelihood.”

Duvenage adds, “These are realities that will come out of this scheme and the system. Then not talk about the space of bribery, where policemen know that this is the last point. If you lose this point you are going to lose your license, and they start to leverage on that from a bribery and corruption point of view, and we know that’s a challenge in this country.”

However, others, like Professor Marianne Vanderschuuren at the University of Cape Town, believe the Act is beneficial and will decrease the amount of road fatalities.

“We need to realise that if we look at the cost of road fatalities, it’s about R160 billion every year that we are losing. The loss of lives, the loss of infrastructure, the loss of vehicles, etc. and sadly, the loss of bread winners for poor communities and I think we (need) to realise that people that can afford to drive cars need to shift their minds to make sure that we protect all road users. This demerit system will help in that.”

Outa says improving road safety is crucial and any legislation or initiatives to enhance safety must be supported whilst saying Aarto is not the silver bullet that will guarantee the implementation of the National Road Safety Strategy or achieve the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety targets.