{"id":62811,"date":"2014-07-15T08:29:42","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T06:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=62811"},"modified":"2014-07-15T08:31:45","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T06:31:45","slug":"e-toll-prosecution-process-begins-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/62811\/e-toll-prosecution-process-begins-report\/","title":{"rendered":"E-toll prosecution process begins: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has assigned prosecutors to begin the process of charging people who have not paid their e-tolls, Eyewitness News reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is according to the NPA\u2019s Nathi Mncube, who told the news outlet today, 15 July 2014, that two senior prosecutors have been assigned to handle e-toll cases.<\/p>\n

The advocates will take on 40 test cases, and will head to court \u201cwhen they feel ready,\u201d EWN was told.<\/p>\n

According to Justice Project South Africa head, Howard Dembovsky, reports about the move come as no surprise.<\/p>\n

\u201cSanral\u2019s e-tolls \u2018marketing strategy\u2019 has always involved a strong element of fear mongering by threatening people with criminal records and other life-changing consequences for resisting their unjust and unduly expensive system of e-tolling \u2013 and simply cannot hope to get anywhere near to anything even remotely resembling \u2018compliance\u2019 without it,\u201d the JPSA head said.<\/p>\n

Dembovsky said it was intriguing, however, that the NPA would \u201crisk prosecuting people when Gauteng Premier David Makhura\u2019s so-called \u2018panel of review on e-tolling\u2019 has just been announced to much fanfare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gauteng premier David Makhura announced in his State of the Province Address on 27 June 2014 that e-tolling in the province will be reviewed.<\/p>\n

Makhura said that the new e-tolling panel will solicit proposals on how to find new solutions for funding the province\u2019s road infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The panel will only be concluding its report and handing it to the Minister of Transport on 30 November 2014.<\/p>\n

Dembovsky said that the prospect of being turned into \u201cartificial criminals\u201d by Sanral and the NPA would have a skewing effect on the assessments made by the panel.<\/p>\n

It is believed that over 1 million people are refusing to pay for e-tolls and thus would have to be prosecuted.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo prosecutors, operating in the already overburdened South African criminal justice courts system, don\u2019t stand any chance of making a significant dent in this figure,\u201d Dembovsky said.<\/p>\n

Both the JPSA and Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) have re-committed to standing behind motorists who face prosecution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe genuinely believe that a properly thought out and mounted criminal defence will lead to the acquittal of those accused of this so-called \u2018crime\u2019. We therefore urge anyone summonsed by the NPA to approach Outa the second that they receive summonses,\u201d the JPSA said.<\/p>\n

More on e-tolls<\/h3>\n

E-toll panel findings due in November<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Motorists warned to pay for e-tolls despite hiccups<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Gauteng Premier welcomes new proposals on e-tolls<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

E-tolls should be put to a national vote: DA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The NPA has assigned prosecutors to begin the process of charging people who have not paid their e-tolls, Eyewitness News reports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1804,26,5279,6456,429],"class_list":["post-62811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-e-tolls","tag-headline","tag-jpsa","tag-npa","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62811","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=62811"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62815,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62811\/revisions\/62815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}