Appeal court dismisses RAF bid over claims rules
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has dismissed an application by the Road Accident Fund (RAF) for special leave to appeal against the first of two high court rulings that overturned its efforts to increase the documentation required of claimants.
It is the latest legal blow to the RAF, which is defending several court challenges to a swathe of far-reaching changes it has sought to introduce to narrow the pool of eligible claimants. These include a decision to stop paying claims from medical scheme members, excluding undocumented foreigners, and increasing the mandatory documentation required.
The RAF is a statutory body, charged with compensating victims of road traffic accidents. It is funded by the fuel levy. Victims can claim for medical expenses and loss of earnings.
In November the high court in Pretoria scrapped the RAF’s new rules for lodging claims, which were set out in a 2021 board notice and accompanying regulations. It said at the time the regulations were unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid as they constituted unfair administrative action in terms of the
Promotion of Administrative Justice Act. The act requires public participation when administrative action is taken, which the RAF had failed to do.
The RAF first sought leave to appeal against the high court ruling and when that bid failed it petitioned the SCA. On March 20 two SCA judges dismissed the application for special leave to appeal, saying it had not satisfied the requirements.
RAF spokesperson McIntosh Polela said the RAF was now “busy with an application for reconsideration on the matter”.
Attorney JP Rudd, who is involved in a separate legal battle over a second board notice published in 2022 that also set out stringent documentation requirements, said it was rare for the SCA judge president to overturn decisions made by the court’s judges regarding applications for special leave to appeal.
Rudd ’ s client, the Legal Practitioners Indemnity Insurance Fund, and its co-applicants succeeded in their application to have the 2022 board notice and accompanying RAF1 form setting out documentation requirements declared unlawful and set aside. Polela said the RAF had instructed its attorneys to appeal against this ruling,