Legal experts call for RAF to fix payment delays outside court

While the RAF last week failed in its urgent bid to extend the 180-day payment moratorium in which to pay claims, citing that it will lead to its financial collapse if the reprieve is not extended, members of the legal fraternity said this is not true - the RAF must just get its house in order.

The Law Society of South Africa (LSSA) meanwhile welcomed the order handed down by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, in which the urgent application brought by the RAF was struck from the roll with punitive costs. 

The fund had sought a further 180-day stay of executions, but the court ruled that the matter lacked urgency. The RAF sought the court’s indulgence to further limit the existing rights of its judgment creditors by extending, yet again, the suspension of writs and warrants by lawyers and other parties who are awaiting payment from the fund.

The RAF asked the court to extend a previous temporary pause on executions which stops sheriffs from enforcing court orders against the RAF. Because of this latest decision, there is no new blanket pause in place. The court’s decision reaffirms that extraordinary, time-limited relief is not a licence for indefinite evasion of court-ordered obligations, the LSSA said.

In recent years, the RAF has asked courts for short, time-limited moratoria. These were granted as exceptional measures to give the RAF breathing room to organise its affairs. They were not meant to become permanent or to be renewed repeatedly, the law body said.

It added that the court’s stance signals that systemic issues at the RAF should be addressed through proper planning, and cooperation with stakeholders, not through serial urgent applications.

The law body said temporary relief cannot become perpetual delay.

“The RAF’s mandate is not abstract, it is a promise embedded in statute and enforced by our courts - to make good, swiftly and fairly, the losses suffered by road-accident victims. Where the Fund fails to honour that promise, the rule of law must intervene,” President of the LSSA, Nkosana Mvundlela said.

It is, however, understood that the application will again serve before court - probably before three judges but on a non-urgent basis.

Nicolette de Witt of the Pretoria Attorney’s Association (PAA) - one of the many respondents - pointed out that the court did not turn the application down on the merits, it just found that it is not urgent. 

While the fund says it fears financial implosion as it is open to attorneys and others to execute the writs they had obtained against the fund in a bid to receive payment, De Witt said this is not likely to happen, as things changed since the fund first obtained its order during the Covid-19 time for a moratorium on the 180 days payment.

She said the legal fraternity wants a solution to the problems facing both the fund and the claimants, as it will be in everyone’s interest. 

“This dispute (non-payment of claims) can be resolved outside the courts. The fund must just play open cards,” she said.

Cape Times