{"id":49748,"date":"2013-11-20T12:20:42","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T10:20:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=49748"},"modified":"2013-11-20T13:11:31","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T11:11:31","slug":"no-special-e-toll-courts-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/49748\/no-special-e-toll-courts-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"No special e-toll courts: minister"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe has confirmed to the Democratic Alliance<\/a> that he is not contemplating the establishment of special e-toll courts.<\/p>\n

According to the minister, prosecutions will be done in the ordinary district courts, while \u201cthere will be a constant review of the capacity requirements of the district courts as the roll out of the e-toll process progresses\u201d.<\/p>\n

It was reported in October that motorists who refused to pay their e-toll bills could end up in a special court for prosecution.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Justice Department spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said Sanral<\/a> had asked for such a court, adding that \u201cWe (Justice department) are still talking about what would be the best method\u201d.<\/p>\n

What happens if you don’t pay?<\/h3>\n

Sanral and former transport minister Ben Martins<\/a> had earlier acknowledged that the controversial AARTO Act would not be used to prosecute e-toll non-payers, but rather the Criminal Procedure Act.<\/p>\n

Motorists would receive fines by registered mail that could lead to a court summons.<\/p>\n

Vusi Mona<\/a>, Sanral spokesman, said motorists who did not pay their toll fees would be charged under the Sanral Act.<\/p>\n

If the first debt collection process fails, a final notice will be sent and the matter will be handed over to the prosecuting authority.<\/p>\n

However, both Outa<\/a> head, Wayne Duvenage<\/a>, and chairman of Justice Project South Africa (JPSA), Howard Dembovsky<\/a> believe that Sanral and the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) company are in for a rude awakening.<\/p>\n

\"Wayne<\/a>

Wayne Duvenage says no to e-tags<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cGiven the fact that some 600,000 e-tags have allegedly been sold, at the very least, the quantum of individuals who will be regarded to be e-toll transgressors could be in the order of one million people or more per day,\u201d Dembovsky said in October.<\/p>\n

Even if Sanral decides to combine all of the transgressions committed by each e-toll transgressor into a single summons over a period of a month, this would mean that 1 million matters will have to be set down for trial each month, Dembovsky said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really don\u2019t have to be a professor of applied mathematics to calculate that it will be physically impossible for the courts to handle these volumes,\u201d the JSPA chairman said.<\/p>\n

The department of transport and Sanral announced that e-tolls will commence on 3 December 2013. According to transport minister Dipuo Peters<\/a>, Sanral has in excess of 1.4 million unsold e-tags.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe (Outa) are aware that once they announce e-tolls commencement, there will be a number of people going out to buy tags, but we believe this will not be enough and the system will fail \u2013 it\u2019s just a matter of time,\u201d Duveange said.<\/p>\n

More on e-toll courts<\/h3>\n

E-toll non-payers could end up in special court<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-toll courts another burden for motorists<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-toll courts proposal a \u201cslap in the face\u201d for SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-toll court proposal alarming: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe has confirmed to the Democratic Alliance he is not contemplating the establishment of special e-toll courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[427,26,6759,5279,429,1989],"class_list":["post-49748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-e-toll","tag-headline","tag-howard-dembovsky","tag-jpsa","tag-sanral","tag-wayne-duvenage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49748"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49760,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49748\/revisions\/49760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}