Legal Articles and Guides

The Department of Transport’s fight with service provider Tasima continues in the Constitutional Court today. A Business Day report says this leg of the legal tussle could bring the drawn-out battle to an end. The source of the tension is a five-year contract extension granted to Tasima in 2010, which the department contends is invalid. Also at play are the department’s repeated failures to pay Tasima despite it being ordered to do so by a court.

The City of Cape Town, strongly opposed to the SA National Roads Agency"s (Sanral"s) plan to toll segments of the N1 and N2 in the Western Cape, says it is prepared to take its fight against tolling plans to the Constitutional Court if necessary. A BDlive report notes that in 2015, the Western Cape High Court put the brakes on Sanral"s tolling plans, when it ruled in the metro"s favour by setting aside the declaration to toll sections of the highways.

The financially strained Road Accident Fund (RAF) says it has identified bogus claims to the value of R126m made between April and June, notes a Business Day report. The fund said the claims were detected before they were paid out. Of the 108 bogus claims detected, 100 were claims represented by attorneys. The RAF has been beset by financial difficulty and has a provision of R145bn for claims it has yet to pay. It is seeking additional funding from the Treasury to help it meet its obligations.

The SCA has dismissed an appeal by a motorcyclist who claimed there was a mistake in his settlement agreement with the RAF, says a News24 report. The Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) had previously ruled in favour of Roelof Ernst Botha, who sued the RAF for damages after he was severely injured in a motorbike accident. Botha's wife was also injured in the accident, and she, too, instituted a claim against the RAF.