Victory for City and Capetonians as Constitutional Court halts tolling of N1 and N2

The City of Cape Town, Capetonians and residents of the Western Cape can finally celebrate a resounding victory in our five-year long legal battle against SANRAL’s attempts to toll sections of the N1 and N2 freeways in Cape Town. Read more below:

The Constitutional Court on Friday 10 February 2017 dismissed the South African National Roads Agency Limited’s application for leave to appeal against the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal in the Winelands tolling matter.

The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) has now reached the end of the road. SANRAL has no choice but to concede that they followed an improper and unlawful process which, if it was left unopposed, would have resulted in Western Cape road users paying R62 billion in toll fees over a period of 30 years.

This also means that should SANRAL still harbour any intentions to toll sections of the N1 and N2 freeways, they will have to start all of the processes again.

The City and our ratepayers can also celebrate the fact that the Constitutional Court ordered SANRAL to pay all of our legal costs in this matter that has been drawn out by the agency unnecessarily.

As of 20 September, the City’s legal costs in the Winelands tolling matter stood at R20 653 756 – this amount excludes the most recent litigation in the Constitutional Court. It does not include SANRAL’s legal costs or those of other National Government departments involved in prior litigation.

A full bench of the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) in Bloemfontein unanimously ruled in the City’s favour on 22 September 2016. The SCA on this day declared the SANRAL Board’s decision to toll sections of the N1 and N2 freeways as invalid.

We called on SANRAL at the time to refrain from wasting taxpayers’ money on further legal action. We pointed out that the City has won every round in court since we launched our review application on 28 March 2012 to set aside the approvals that enabled SANRAL to toll sections of the N1 and N2 freeways in Cape Town.

In his judgment, Judge Navsa from the SCA rightly stated that ‘the tolling of national roads has become a burning issue in public and political debate’.

Even though it is within the National Government’s mandate to determine how road infrastructure should be funded, the SCA found that this does not ‘immune an Organ of State from judicial review’ and ‘that the exercise of all public power is subject to constitutional control’.

Political decision-makers and public entities such as SANRAL are thus still obliged to follow due process and to act within the law.

The City brought the review application in 2012 in the interests of the residents of Cape Town, and in particular the poor, who would have been the worst affected if SANRAL’s decisions were to stand. Given the scale of this litigation and SANRAL’s stubbornness, no individual or group of residents could realistically have brought this legal challenge and battle it out to the end.

We once again call on SANRAL to rather work with the City to find a solution for the infrastructural upgrades that may be required for the N1 and N2 freeways in future.

Statement issued by Councillor Brett Herron, Mayoral Committee Member: Transport and Urban Development Authority, City of Cape Town, 10 February 2017