JPSA vindicated by Public Protector’s Report on JMPD Maladministration

JOHANNESBURG – Having now received and studied the full report entitled “A Matter of Interpretation” announced by the Public Protector on 18 December 2014 Justice Project South Africa feels vindicated by the fact that the JMPD has been found to have engaged in “improper conduct and maladministration” by the Public Protector.

This matter has been an uphill battle that has continued for more than four and a half years with the JMPD and other agencies repeatedly attempting to discredit JPSA along the way in order to continue engaging in their improper conduct and maladministration but the truth has prevailed and JPSA has been proven to have been right in its assertions that it has held from day one.

It is a shame however that the only remedial action that has been imposed on the JMPD is for it to “apologise” for breaking the law and to provide its “reasons” for doing so in Johannesburg Newspapers since we had hoped that at the very least they would have been compelled to cancel all of the outstanding unlawfully issued AARTO infringement notices that still exist on their system.
As things stand, the JMPD remains in a position to continue to stop motorists in roadblocks and demand payment of these infringement notices under threat of arrest, despite the fact that the notices are in fact unlawful and that the JMPD has no legal powers to arrest or otherwise detain any motorist on the basis of outstanding AARTO fines.

The purpose of traffic fines should not be about providing a revenue stream for the City of Johannesburg or any other municipality, but sadly that is exactly what they are viewed to be. This was made even more apparent in the report wherein it was stated that “the collected revenue through issuing of infringement notices between August 2010 to December 2012 has escalated to R963 871 250”. JMPD Chief, Zwelinzima Nyanda then went on to say that “the revenue collected from traffic fines is a source of general income for the City of Johannesburg and that a lesser revenue received would result in charging rate taxpayers more in order to source its budget”.

It somehow seems to have been overlooked that the illegal revenues collected by the JMPD would never have grown to nearly a billion Rand, up to half of which should have been paid to the Road Traffic Infringement Agency, should the JMPD and the City of Johannesburg have acted responsibly and ceased its unlawful actions at the time that JPSA first started engaging with them in mid-2010 over this matter.

Just because the JMPD began to comply with the AARTO Act on 22 December 2012 due to the mounting pressure which resulted from the investigation by the Public Protector and questions asked of the Minister of Transport in Parliament does not remedy the situation of the JMPD having violated the Act for 32 months prior to that and this matter has unfortunately not been addressed or remedied.

JPSA will be considering its options over the next few weeks and may consider approaching the High Court in the New Year to seek an order compelling the JMPD to cancel all illegal infringement notices that exist on their system, if the JMPD refuses to do so of its own volition. By not compelling the JMPD to cancel the remaining illegal infringement notices, the JMPD has effectively been given free license to continue to benefit from their improper conduct and maladministration.

JPSA again warns motorists not to be intimidated into paying AARTO 03 infringement notices issued by the JMPD starting with 02-4024 issued between June 2010 and 21 December 2012 since all AARTO 08 representations made to the RTIA to have these withdrawn have been successful.

Best Regards,

Howard Dembovsky
National Chairman – Justice Project South Africa (NPC)