[May 2013..Dec 2013] The Gauteng E-tolling Thread

Status
Not open for further replies.
CR34M3 said:
While I understand completely where you come from, what is the legal precedent regarding this? As per your example, VAT remains a non-issue until I buy something and the act of buying is definitely voluntary. How is causality (for lack of a better word) treated in this case?
Click to expand...

Voluntary refers to whether or not you are obliged to pay, not whether or not you chose to use the road or buy the product.
 
IzZzy said:
We have a different understanding of voluntary. My understanding is that it is not voluntary: if I use the road, I have to pay the toll. I do not have an option not to pay the toll. Just as if you buy a product (whether or not you may choose to buy that product), you will have to pay VAT.
Click to expand...

Agreed. This is exactly the same principle as paying etolls.
 
If I end up in court for not bowing to the etrolling extortion, I will make sure that my legal representative puts forward a motion based on conflict of interest, to have all prosecutors/clerks/judges/magistrates removed from the case if they have a pension managed by the PIC which has a vested interest in etrolling, and means that all such persons whose pension is tied to the success of etrolling, cannot be trusted to act fairly and impartially.
 
CR34M3 said:
On the topic of the e-Tolls being a tax; how does the fact that you are not (technically) forced to use the road affect that? Could they then argue that it is thus not a tax because it is voluntary and the incidental credit akin to a fine and not for a service provided?
Click to expand...

Well in that case it's voluntary to get a job and earn money and so pay income tax. "voluntary", yeah sure...
 
When e-tolling goes live on 3rd December then everybody should put a photo of Nkandla on your car. It will then be illegal for the Gantries to take pics of your car or to use them in any way.
 
Garyvdh said:
When e-tolling goes live on 3rd December then everybody should put a photo of Nkandla on your car. It will then be illegal for the Gantries to take pics of your car or to use them in any way.
Click to expand...

Awesome thought. This would only egg SANEF on to publish even more pics of this monstrosity. Thing is my isn't big enough to display such a big eye sore. :)
 
Pierre de Vos doing his best to make friends again. :p

E-toll civil disobedience reveals lack of respect for democracy

As the start of the levying of e-tolls in Gauteng looms, many motorists are saying that they will refuse to buy e-tags, implying that they will also refuse to pay the tolls once they are charged double the price for driving on the toll roads without an e-tag. In other words, they are implying that they will refuse to obey a validly passed law that does not infringe on the fundamental human rights of anyone. This refusal to obey a constitutionally valid law passed by a democratic government, displays a worrying lack of respect for (and understanding of) democracy.
The Rolling Stones might as well have had the voters in a democracy (or in any other system of government) in mind when they sang “you can’t always get what you want”. No citizen has a right to always get what he or she wants from the democratically elected government – whether he or she voted for the governing party or not.

You can hope for the best, but you cannot expect to agree with every single decision a democratically elected government takes. Sometimes a democratically elected government will adopt policies and pass laws that some (or even a majority of) voters will not like.

When this happens, unhappy voters who respect the democratic process cannot normally break the law to try and subvert otherwise validly passed policies or laws. When they do this, they subvert the democratic process by using non-democratic and unlawful methods to achieve an outcome that they could not achieve through the democratic process.

Such behaviour undermines democracy by subverting democratic processes and by undermining the democratically elected government and its ability to govern.

As long as the policies or laws do not infringe on the rights of anybody and do not undermine the democratic freedoms that secure meaningful on-going participation of all citizens in the democratic process, those who are committed to democracy have a moral and legal duty to obey the policies and laws with which they do not agree.

The situation may be different when the democratically elected government undermines democracy by moving to limit your democratic freedoms. When the government changes laws or policies to draw a veil of secrecy over its activities in order to avoid accountability or when it changes the rules of democratic engagement to give the incumbent party an unfair advantage in elections, citizens (as custodians of democracy) may have to resort to more drastic action to protect democracy itself. In such cases, ignoring the law is aimed at protecting democracy itself and would be morally justified.

But in the absence of such anti-democratic moves by a governing party the options for voters to influence the laws and policies of a government are limited to legal steps that respect the legitimacy of the democratically elected government and the democratic process itself.

In a democracy you vote for a political party who may or may not get enough votes to form the government. If the party of your choice fails to gain a majority of votes in an election, you have to wait until the next election in the hope that the party of your choice will be able to convince a majority of voters to vote for it.

Even if the party of your choice won the election, it may well adopt policies or pass laws with which you disagree. You can hold the governing party accountable by threatening to withdraw (or by actually withdrawing) your support for that party in the next election. After all, when you vote for a party in an election, you are merely lending your vote to that party on the condition that it acts in a manner that guarantees it your support in the future. When it acts in ways that breaks the relationship of trust with the party, you must change your vote and lend it to another party.

This does not mean that democracy requires citizens to remain passive bystanders in-between elections. All citizens have a right to participate in the democratic process by making submissions on proposed laws and policies, by organising opposition to those aspects of laws or policies they disagree with, by expressing their displeasure of laws or policies in the media, by challenging the laws or policies in court and by taking part in peaceful protests against specific laws and policies of the government.

It is clear that many middle class people living in Gauteng are very upset about the introduction of e-tolling by the government. They argue that the system of financing the upgrading of highways is inefficient and unwise and that there may well have been better and more cost-effective ways to finance the upgrading of the roads. These arguments appear to be valid, but the government of the day has decided to ignore all the objections and to go ahead with the implementation of e-tolling.

Several courts have declined to interfere with the decision to impose e-tolling on Gauteng freeways, suggesting that the laws and policies are constitutionally valid. While perhaps unwise, the imposition of e-tolls does not infringe on the human rights of anyone and neither does it subvert the democratic process. It’s a bummer, but e-tolling has been validly introduced and citizens who respect democracy must therefore obey its prescripts.

A democrat faced with such a situation is not powerless. First, he or she can decide that the government who introduced e-tolling must be punished at the next election and can lend their vote to another political party. If enough voters show their unhappiness in this manner, a new political party will gain the majority of votes and will become the governing party who will be able to scrap the introduction of e-tolls.

Secondly, he or she can take part in massive peaceful demonstrations to demonstrate to the government of the day that the policy is unpopular with citizens. I have no doubt that if a million people gathered outside the Union Buildings and remained there for a week or two to protest against the imposition of e-tolls, the government would be forced to rethink the policy.

But this has not happened. Most South Africans who oppose the introduction of e-tolls appear to be too lazy or too wedded to their own comforts to take part in a prolonged mass protest against e-tolls. Citizens want the government to listen to their protests but they could not be bothered to protest in a manner that would force the governing party to take the protests seriously.

Instead, the vast majority of those who oppose e-tolls seem to be choosing the easy, but essentially anti-democratic, way of protesting against the validly imposed and constitutionally sound policy: they are going to refuse to buy e-tags and then to pay for the tolls when they are required to do so.

But there is no moral or legal basis for opponents of e-tolls to disobey the law. They are, in fact, promoting lawlessness, the very lawlessness that members of the chattering classes complain about when strikers break the law or mini-bus taxi drivers refuse to obey traffic rules. They demand a right to be lawless in order to oppose e-tolls, while criticising others who are lawless, displaying a hypocrisy that is all too familiar.

Democracy is not something you can switch on and off as it pleases you, going along with democratic rules when you get your way and subverting the democratic process when you do not. Gauteng residence must heed the advice of Mick Jagger and accept that they cannot always get what they want – especially if they are not prepared to make the sacrifices associated with prolonged mass protest.
Click to expand...
 
What crap is he spouting ?

I am not going to break the law, I will pay when I have to, but I sure as hell will make it as difficult as possible for them to get their money, they will have to earn every cent.

And after the collection costs there won't be anything left to send overseas.
 
Didn't read De Vos's ranting.. knew by the headline that i'd want to smack him if i did.
 
Jola said:
What crap is he spouting ?

I am not going to break the law, I will pay when I have to, but I sure as hell will make it as difficult as possible for them to get their money, they will have to earn every cent.

And after the collection costs there won't be anything left to send overseas.
Click to expand...
This ^

As far as I can remember nobody (except maybe COSATU) has called for motorists to break the law. As such, “civil disobedience” is probably not the best description of what’s being called for. Something like ‘civil stubbornness’ is more apt I think.

Be stubborn, but don’t break the law. Let this system cave in on itself. If it is a good system then it won’t, but let’s put that to the test.
 
A campaign where we all march the union building and staying there for 2 weeks will impact the economy very negatively (who knows how much compared to the negative effects of the e-tolls) and we are all just trying to get by in a tough situation already, ain't nobody got time for that!
 
OrbitalDawn said:
Pierre de Vos doing his best to make friends again. :p

E-toll civil disobedience reveals lack of respect for democracy
Click to expand...

I find this oke peculiar. On the one hand he effectively advocates legal positivism and adherence to any hair-brained notion our government comes up with, on the other he currently has a picture of Zumaville as his Twitter portrait...

He makes two substantial errors in his thinking, as far as I'm concerned. The first is summed up by him saying the failed legal onslaughts thus far are "suggesting that the laws and policies are constitutionally valid". If the courts erred - which they do on occasion - or even if simply the wrong questions were asked the argument falls flat. The second issue is that he doesn't seem to consider that a democratically elected government can still act in an undemocratic fashion. When this happens the suggested recourse of quietly and peacefully waiting for the next election to roll 'round is patently absurd.
 
supersunbird said:
A campaign where we all march the union building and staying there for 2 weeks will impact the economy very negatively (who knows how much compared to the negative effects of the e-tolls) and we are all just trying to get by in a tough situation already, ain't nobody got time for that!
Click to expand...

They don't give a rats ass about the economy. Even a failed state still provides sufficient money for it's leaders. Just look at Zim.
 
I wonder how Pierre de Vos felt about the Apartheid era laws which were also validly passed laws.

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." Thomas Jefferson.

I will probably end up paying in the end, but I'll make them sweat for every cent.
 
HapticSimian said:
I find this oke peculiar. On the one hand he effectively advocates legal positivism and adherence to any hair-brained notion our government comes up with, on the other he currently has a picture of Zumaville as his Twitter portrait...

He makes two substantial errors in his thinking, as far as I'm concerned. The first is summed up by him saying the failed legal onslaughts thus far are "suggesting that the laws and policies are constitutionally valid". If the courts erred - which they do on occasion - or even if simply the wrong questions were asked the argument falls flat. The second issue is that he doesn't seem to consider that a democratically elected government can still act in an undemocratic fashion. When this happens the suggested recourse of quietly and peacefully waiting for the next election to roll 'round is patently absurd.
Click to expand...

Equally aburd is the notion that the populace should just grin & bear the tyranny of governments. History is littered with examples of instances where people rise up against unjust governments and unpopular laws, our own recent history a perfect example. Civil disobedience is propably the most peaceful and least disruptive method of accomplishing that.

He also confuses legal grounds with moral grounds, does he seriously expect us to just look the other way while elected officials misspend and outright steal our collective funds through their incompetence and corruption? The law is supposed to protect us from that, not prevent us from demanding justice and fair treatment from the people who's supposed to look after our interests. E-tolling laws may have passed constitutional muster in the way they were implemented, but that does not make the decisions taken morally right.

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty - Thomas Jefferson
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X