As the implementation date of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) amendment bill draws closer – March next year is one of the dates bandied about – road freight operators have branded it ‘unconstitutional’. At the heart of the concern is the complete removal of the courts from the Aarto process, making it compulsory to make written representations to the Road Traffic Infringement Authority (RTIA). Traffic fine revenues fund this stateowned enterprise almost entirely. “The amendment bill has taken away the right to be heard in court and in its place has set up a tribunal that will have to be paid a fee to hear the case. There are major issues and challenges in all of this,” said Gavin Kelly, technical and operations manager of the Road Freight Association (RFA). “It has yet to be communicated how much this fee is.” In the new legislation the RTIA has officers representing it in this newly formed tribunal which will hear applications for appeal or review. These applications have to be made within 30 days of the adverse decisions and be accompanied by the payment of the fee. “So essentially to appeal any infringement you have to pay the organisation that wrote the very law you are appealing – and which then decides if the law they have written must be upheld or not. It’s a picture that does not work,” said Kelly. In addition to the paying of fees to the tribunal, demerit points are also applied against the driving licences of proxies for juristic entities that are registered owners of motor vehicles. In other words the actual driver of a vehicle will not lose points against the licence, but rather the person in whose name the vehicle is registered. Currently before the president for signing, the bill was passed in the National Assembly in September this year by 225 votes to 88, with zero abstentions. Kelly said industry had submitted comments to the transport parliamentary portfolio committee before the bill was passed. “We are now waiting for the president to sign it,” he told FTW, indicating there was no clarity at this stage on when this was expected to happen. Kelly said once signed there was no doubt that several businesses in the freight and bus industries would be impacted negatively. “It will destroy businesses the way it is contemplated at present.” While the government maintains that the signing of the Aarto bill is an important intervention that will ensure that necessary punitive measures are imposed on all traffic law transgressors, various stakeholders have said there are major flaws in the legislation.
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One of the biggest concerns is the complete removal of the courts from the Aarto process. – Gavin Kelly
