Civil rights organisation AfriForum is heading to court to fight the country’s five-year driver’s licence validity period, following the third breakdown in less than 18 months of the only driver’s licence card printing machine in the country.
In an interview with Newzroom Afrika, AfriForum’s Ernst van Zyl said the organisation has a “solid case” to get the five-year renewal period declared as “unconstitutional” by the Pretoria High Court.
“AfriForum’s application rests on several legal and practical grounds, from a legal perspective, the National Road Traffic Act and regulations are too vague to be enforceable, and then also, the legislation does not clearly distinguish between a driver’s licence and a driver’s licence card, and it also doesn’t explicitly stipulate that motorists must apply for a new driver’s licence card when the card expires,” said Van Zyl.
“It does not even stipulate that it is a crime to drive with an expired driver’s licence card and does not prescribe any fine, penalty, or sanction.”
AfriForum believes these deficiencies and gaps in the legislation are serious enough to make a solid legal case that there’s no basis for licence cards to have to be renewed every five years.
Context of the machine continuously breaking, corruption allegations in the traffic department, and other “inefficiencies” will assist in strengthening its stance, he said.
AfriForum is therefore seeking a declaratory order stating that the five-year driver’s licence and all fines issued for expired licences are unconstitutional.
The court case is being heard in August 2023, and Van Zyl said AfriForum will keep the public updated on the proceedings as soon as they commence.
He warned that driving with an expired licence card is, for now, still against the law, and appeals to motorists not to take any chances and remain patient until the case ruling has been provided.
Old transport minister Fikile Mbalula with the licence card printing machine. Source: MyBroadband
10-year licence renewals
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abux (Outa) is similarly challenging the country’s five-year renewal period but for a different reason.
It said the National Road Traffic Act and regulations read together makes clear the intention was to create a process for a driving licence card to be proof that you have a licence and for it to be renewed every five years.
“It is accepted practice worldwide that licences or licence cards must be renewed,” said the organisation.
As such, Outa instead argues that the renewal period should be extended to 10 years.
The organisation looked at the legislation of 35 other countries and saw an average validity period of eight-and-a-half years, but said it favours a 10-year validity period for South Africa as it would reduce the administrative burden of renewals on the authorities responsible for them, reports MyBroadband.
In October 2022, then-transport minister Fikile Mbalula said he is going to Cabinet with a proposition of extending the validity period for licence cards to eight years.
In the meantime, however, Outa said it has seen no formal proposals or research to extend the validity period.
Additionally, it contends that the minister of transport would not need to get these regulations approved by the Cabinet to have them enforced.
“Outa respectfully disagrees with the Minister’s approach and is of the opinion that this change can easily be effected by the Minister himself, by publishing new regulations in the Government Gazette and that the Minister does not need Cabinet approval before this can be done,” it said.
Mbalula has since left his post as transport minister to become the ANC Secretary-General, succeeded by Lydia Sindisiwe Chikunga who served as his deputy minister, and subsequently, there have been no new developments on the eight-year validity period.
Keyword: 5-year driver’s licence court battle in South Africa