Constitutional Court dismisses DA's application

The Constitutional Court has dismissed an application by the Democratic Alliance for leave to appeal a decision by the Western Cape High Court not to declare the Transport and Related Matters Amendment Bill unconstitutional and invalid.

The application was dismissed with costs.

"The Constitutional Court has considered this application for leave to appeal. It has concluded that the application should be dismissed as it is not in the interests of justice to hear it as this stage," the Court's order on the matter read.

The basis of the DA's argument was that amendments to the Bill were unconstitutional and invalid because they had not been passed according to what it deemed to be proper procedure, which would be with input from the provinces.

In particular the DA questioned the labelling of the Bill which was tagged as a section 75 bill - an ordinary bill not affecting provinces - rather than a section 76 bill, which does affect provinces.

"We welcome the Constitutional Court's decision," South African National Roads Agency SOC (Sanral) head of communications Vusi Mona said. "It is clear that in crafting this Act the legislators followed the correct process. It has always been our view that the Act was labelled correctly. The decision by the court to dismiss with costs speaks to the fact that the DA's suit was frivolous and unnecessary."

Mona said it was unfortunate that a purely infrastructural matter had been turned into a political football and used to polarise society. "Also regrettable was the contempt shown by self-proclaimed champions of the rule of law towards court judgments that do not favour them," he said.

Sanral, which was one of six respondents in the matter, would be sending the DA a demand for payment of costs, he said.