The Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act, which was recently declared unconstitutional by the Pretoria High Court, is headed to the Constitutional Court in three legal actions, reported BusinessTech.
The Act was declared unconstitutional as the legislation unlawfully intrudes upon the exclusive executive and legislative competence of the local and provincial governments envisaged in the Constitution, thus preventing local and provincial governments from regulating their own affairs, said Judge Annali Basson in her ruling.
Legal battle
As it stands, there are three actions filed in South Africa’s Constitutional Court in connection with the Aarto ruling, said the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa).
These are:
- Outa’s application for confirmation.
- Individual notices of appeal from the minister of transport and RTIA.
- The Road Traffic Management Corporation (RTMC), a state-owned entity that reports to the minister of transport, applied to the Constitutional Court for permission to intervene and be joined as the fifth respondent in the case.
The high court’s unconstitutionality ruling must first be confirmed by the Constitutional Court, and the Aarto Act remains in place until that time, said the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA).
Additionally, the RTIA said it is “confident that the relief sought will be granted by the Constitutional Court.”
The RTIA and government want to push ahead with the Act as they claim it is designed to change the behaviour of road users and aims to curb the high number of fatalities that occur annually on the country’s roads.
On the contrary, Outa previously said there is no evidence that the Aarto pilot project which launched in 2008 has “saved a single life”.
The organisation also said the Act is more geared toward revenue collection than reducing road fatalities, and that the legal battle is far from over.
“Outa urges the government to listen to the input given by organisations such as Outa when reviewing these acts,” it said.
“We can assure the public that we will carefully monitor the process to ensure that any revised Aarto acts are constitutional and truly aimed at increased road safety and saving lives.”
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