Transport Minister, Sindisiwe Chikunga, said the government would be moving with speed to roll-out the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) Act following a Constitutional Court finding that the piece of legislation was valid.
The AARTO Act is the legislation that was passed by Parliament in 1998 that seeks to introduce the demerit system in terms of which motorists who break traffic laws will lose certain points and, once they have lost a certain number of points, will have their driving licenses suspended or cancelled.
The legislation also introduces a new system of administrative adjudication of cases of traffic infringement.
In 2019, Parliament passed the AARTO Amendment Act in terms of which, among others, it created an Appeals Tribunal which would adjudicate appeals from decisions of the Road Traffic Infringement Authority.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) had instituted an application in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, against the Minister of Transport and the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, seeking an order declaring the AARTO legislation constitutionally invalid.
However, the apex court on Wednesday dismissed Outa’s application, refused to confirm the order of invalidity made by the High Court, and instead upheld the Minister’s appeal.
Chikunga said they welcomed the judgment.
“The implementation of this law across the country has been pending for 25 years, with pilots in place in the cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane.
“With this judgment having cleared the path for the implementation of AARTO, we will move with speed to roll out its implementation across the country without delay.
“In the coming days, we will ensure that the Road Traffic Infringement Agency mobilises the necessary capacity and proceeds with its rollout plans across all municipalities in the country.
“We are also ready to finalise our recommendations to the President for the appointment of the Tribunal and the proclamation of the AARTO Act implementation as well as the AARTO Amendment Act.
“We will equally move with speed with the implementation of the points demerit system, an important cornerstone of the AARTO Act intended to drive motorist behaviour on our roads.”
Outa said it was disappointed with the judgment.
“We are disappointed with the Concourt’s decision but abide by the apex court’s ruling.
“Outa believes that measures to improve road safety and reduce fatalities are urgently needed.
“However, we don’t believe that the AARTO Acts will achieve this. It’s just not practically possible,” said Outa executive director, advocate Stefanie Fick.
Cape Times