Truth about e-tolls and criminal records: JPSA
The Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) released a press statement on 4 April 2014, in which it aimed to set the record straight on the process that will have to be followed by Sanral to prosecute people who do not pay for e-tolls.
According to the JPSA, Sanral CFO 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. Mulder cited 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 Mulder,” the JPSA said.
According to the JPSA, 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.
“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,” the JPSA said.
Mulder said 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,” said the JPSA.
“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.”
The 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.”
The JPSA said that 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,” it added.
The JPSA said that the process that will have to be followed by Sanral is as follows:
- 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 JPSA said.
Outa comment on Sanral statements
In a related press statement, the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) said that Sanral CFO Inge Mulder made a mockery of the Judicial system by stating that summonses will be easily processed by rolling up every individual’s invoices into one charge and that bulk cases would be easily handled by the courts.
“The judicial system is not the handmaid of Sanral. It exists to ensure justice prevails,” said Outa spokesperson John Clarke.
“The statements made by the Sanral CFO completely ignores the fact the each person’s case has to be heard individually and that there are thousands or possibly even hundreds of thousands of people who have simply no idea of how the system works.”
“The tariff structure is misleading, invoices have numerous errors, Sanral’s call centres are unable to answer or deal with queries, not to mention the incorrect information which the e-toll administration processes rely on,” he added.
He added that Sanral cannot harass and threaten potential charges against innocent people who are not even using these freeways.
“Furthermore, Sanral still needs to convince a court why it conducted a diabolical and most feeble public engagement process in 2007/8, as well as providing the Minister of Transport with misleading information and other pertinent irrational matters that challenge citizen’s constitutional rights at the time of the e-Toll decision being made.”
More on e-tolls
Pay up for e-tolls or face jail time: Sanral
Damning e-toll information leaked: Outa
Three more e-toll gantries go live
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