Useful laws to know

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Debbie

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I thought it would be a good idea to compile a list of links to useful summaries of the laws that are likely to affect many forumites. (I know this has nothing to do with broadband, blah blah blah).

Whenever I come across something suitable I will post the link here.

1. Small Claims Court: If you have been screwed over by a company, an individual, your municipality etc, and the amount of money you seek is R7 000 or less, then take a look at the Smalls Claims Court procedure: http://www.doj.gov.za/2004dojsite/brochure/2004_smcourtsp.pdf OR http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/static/help/SmallClaimsCourtFAQ.html

2. Important Tax Info (2006): http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/budget/2006/sars/B05PocketG.pdf
Budget/Tax info (2008/9):http://www.treasury.gov.za/documents/national budget/2008/guides/Budget Pocketguide 2008.pdf

3. Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA): This is a PDF file explaining PAIA in 'plain language'. The PAIA Act is about entrenching democracy in South Africa by 'forcing' transparency and accountability in corporations, government and other bodies with power in our society. More specifically, it is about giving citizens access to information about corporations and the government.

What information are you entitled to? What information are corporations and public bodies/government required to provide you with on your request? What kind of information can you be refused access to? This PDF can be found at: http://www.opendemocracy.org.za/PDF/Final version of plain language translation of the Act.pdf

4. Basic Conditions of Employment Act: If you are an employer or an employee, I think it is pretty important to be familiar with this Act, especially the parts about working hours, overtime, leave, family and sick leave, the payment of interest, severence pay and dispute procedures:http://www.labour.gov.za/download/7881/Amended Act - Basic Conditions of Employment.pdf

5. Claims for interest on debts: This is a short note explaining the law's view (if there is such a thing) on interest. I thought it was pretty interesting and a worthwhile read: http://www.arbitrators.co.za/arbsnew/practice/pn5.htm

6. Capegateway: If you live in the Western Cape and need any information on government services (such as getting a vehicle licence, contraception, traffic fines etc) this government-run website is excellent: http://www.capegateway.gov.za/eng/

7. Rental Housing Act 1999: http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/acts/1999/a50-99.pdf

8. Are you married and don't know it? http://home-affairs.pwv.gov.za/status/marital_status.asp (does not work if you only wish you were or were not married).
 
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Nice work , this is not off-topic ,I think this thread is useful in consumerism section , If Dedbbie2 agrees.
 
Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA): This is a PDF file explaining PAIA in 'plain language'. The PAIA Act is about entrenching democracy in South Africa by 'forcing' transparency and accountability in corporations, government and other bodies with power in our society. More specifically, it is about giving citizens access to information about corporations and the government.

What information are you entitled to? What information are corporations and public bodies/government required to provide you with on your request? What kind of information can you be refused access to? This PDF can be found at: http://www.opendemocracy.org.za/PDF/Final version of plain language translation of the Act.pdf

(Mods, move this thread to consumerism and deregulation if you want - I think it's a good idea).
 
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Debbie2 said:
I
What information are you entitled to? What information are corporations and public bodies/government required to provide you with on your request? What kind of information can you be refused access to?
Click to expand...

And if a company refuses to provide the information as PAIA stipulates then what exactly is John Welch the deputy director of prosecutions going to do about it? John Welch is under no obligation to enforce notices in the government gazette for example. The legislative is seperate from the executive. For example mr.Welch might find it unconstitutional to demand sensitive information from a company etc. Please seperate the civil/social implications of ignoring a law from the criminal implications.

I personally find the PAIA act unreasonable and I will not hand out any sensitive information to anybody that
requests it. I haven't even read the act. Couldn't care less, I will only take notice if John Welch says something.

What court case are your refering to when you say that the public could 'demand information'? Demand according to which judge? A judge must decide wether the PAIA is constitutional, but since the NPA would never prosecute anybody for failing to comply we won't ever find out. Thus a company is 100% within it's constitutional rights to refuse to comply with the PAIA act.
We all have agendas in life. Lets for example take the agenda of www.ispa.org.za the company you work for. Ispa wouldn't want the public to know that the NPA isn't going to enforce the PAIA act. Because the public might then also deduce that the NPA won't enforce the Broadcasting Act, Act.96, ECA or other laws meant to censor freedom of speach and
hinder communities from establishing their lines of communication. Let me put it this way. If Icasa were to ban private telephone poles under the ECA as it may do (see p.12/13/14/15) then I will plant telephone poles and openly challenge John Welch to arrest me. Infact I would suggest that Welch rather investigate the Telecom's firm who would have bribed the relevent official.

Let me try and clarify this further. The Dont panic satellite broadcaster is openly laughing in Icasa's face. Icasa
actually laid a criminal charge of violating the Broadcasting Act against them. And what happened ? Nothing, absolutely
nothing. Did John Welch say anything? Nope, not a word not even a wisper. Yes, I know the ECA will replace the
broadcasting act, but the principle remains. If Welch won't enforce the Broadcasting act/Act.96 then why would
he enforce rulings by bribed officials that violate the "reasonable man principle" under the ECA.

What is getting me concerned is the moronic responses to my posts on planting telephone poles and establishing our lines of communications between houses. To pull-off this stunt we need a rapid roll-out so that we can form a powerblock against www.ispa.org.za , Telkom and Icasa. A judge would be reluctant to get involved in a fight with a couple of thousand houses. The strategy of divide and conquer has worked well for vested Telecoms interests.

South African residential areas are becoming a battleground. We collectivly speaking are involved in a war. And the
first thing you do is to establish your lines of communication in a war situation. By sheer force of intimidation
vested interests have scared naive South Africans into not thinking or even discussing the possibility of what needs to
be done.
 
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Good one captainwifi - yup - we should all be sharing our connections with our neighbours.
 
*we should all be sharing our connections with our neighbours.*

I dont plan on sharing my DroneMaster next door with Anyone else ! :mad:
 
Just out of curiosity, how are the levels of traffic fines in South Africa? I had a look on Capegateway.co.za's site but I couldn't find much else than "how do I pay my fine" and that sort of information.

That said, I don't have immediate plans to get a huge traffic ticket in South Africa. It's just nice to know a little about what it means to be caught doing X mph in a Y mph zone. :D
 
Just out of curiosity, how are the levels of traffic fines in South Africa? I had a look on Capegateway.co.za's site but I couldn't find much else than "how do I pay my fine" and that sort of information.
Click to expand...

It varies, but it's usualy about R100-R200 [12 EUR] if you drive 70kmh in 60kmh zone, 80-90kmh in a 60 zone it jumps to about R300-R400 . I recently got a fine of R400 [50 EUR] for driving 110kmh in a 80kmh zone.
 
diabolus said:
It varies, but it's usualy about R100-R200 [12 EUR] if you drive 70kmh in 60kmh zone, 80-90kmh in a 60 zone it jumps to about R300-R400 . I recently got a fine of R400 [50 EUR] for driving 110kmh in a 80kmh zone.
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This is all true. I have three at the moment.

One for 82 in a 60 zone- R400
93 in a 60 - R500
94 in a 60 - R500

not cool.
 
diabolus said:
It varies, but it's usualy about R100-R200 [12 EUR] if you drive 70kmh in 60kmh zone, 80-90kmh in a 60 zone it jumps to about R300-R400 . I recently got a fine of R400 [50 EUR] for driving 110kmh in a 80kmh zone.
Click to expand...

Thanks mate. Wow, that's pretty reasonable, it won't totally rape your personal economy.

Last year I was fined approx R10000 for doing 85km/h in a 50km/h zone in Norway. Not just that, I was banned from driving for 7 months. No other countries in the world have such severe penalties for speeding. The bewildering thing was that it happened late in the evening with virtually no traffic at all.

I'm guessing SA has a lot of traffic police actively patrolling the roads, though?
 
Eurotrash said:
I'm guessing SA has a lot of traffic police actively patrolling the roads, though?
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I wish that was true! but I'm afriad its not. They also only seem to care about people speeding and dont do anything about reckless driving, people doing 60km/h in the right hand lanes of 120km/h highways, people driving with fog lights on at night.. when there is no fog, etc

Its also a sad fact that most of them can be bribed

I've spotted the Traffic police setting up a camera at a bridge over a river on a highway(R59 before the engen blockhouse) , and then climbing down with their fishing poles and going fishing.
 
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