Written by Zelda Venter | Published on 28 April 2025 | IoL A Pretoria law firm has turned to the Constitutional Court for direct access to the highest court in the country in an urgent bid to overturn a directive introducing mandatory mediation in the Gauteng Division of the High Court. Since last week, the Johannesburg and Pretoria high courts no longer allocate trial dates for civil cases (cases where evidence is being led, such as damages claims). Litigants, who in these cases want a judge to determine their issues, must first prove that they have tried to resolve their issues via mediation. A trial date will be allocated only if mediation does not resolve the issues, and they can prove via a certificate that they did try it. Gauteng Judge President Dunstan Mlambo in March issued a draft directive and called for objections from the public, lawyers, and interested

Written by Zelda Venter | Published on 2 February 2025 | IOL The time has come for South Africa’s leadership to take action and restore order and accountability to the Road Accident Fund. Without immediate intervention, the RAF will become yet another failed state-owned entity. This is according to attorney Gert Nel who specialises in RAF matters. Nel expressed his concern about how the fund is being operated. “Fuel levy payers’ money is wasted, real lives and livelihoods are at risk, with road crash victims bearing the brunt of systemic inefficiency and bureaucratic indifference.” He said the RAF is an institution charged with compensating road crash victims, yet it is deliberately distorting its purpose by bypassing legal obligations and operating in blatant defiance of court rulings. He accused the fund’s leadership of evading accountability while systematically denying justice to thousands of vulnerable victims. Nel said the cornerstone of the RAF’s

Written by Ina Opperman | Published on 24 January 2025 | The Citizen An expert attorney says the RAF is not doing its job and changed its purpose, despite parliament and the courts challenging the change. An expert says the Road Accident Fund (RAF) is misrepresenting itself and its purpose to avoid accountability while denying justice to vulnerable victims. However, the RAF says the expert is a former employee who set up his business based on the fund’s “inefficiencies.” Gert Nel from Gert Nel Inc., a law firm specialising in personal injury cases, including claims against the RAF, calls on people to imagine an institution charged with compensating road crash victims that deliberately distorts its purpose by bypassing legal obligations and operating in blatant defiance of court rulings. “This is the reality of the Road Accident Fund (RAF) whose leadership has unlawfully redefined its purpose – a calculated misrepresentation designed

Written by Kirsten Minnaar | Published on 10 January 2025 | DailyInvestor The CEO of the Road Accident Fund (RAF), Collins Letsoalo, has alleged that the law firm Gert Nel Attorneys has benefited irregularly from medico-legal claims. “Over the past period of five years, Gert Nel Attorneys has been paid over R2.2 billion from the RAF,” Letsoalo said.  “For R2 billion, we know that is close to R500 million that he has made. You are not shocked why this man fights so much. He wants to continue.” When asked to break down this R2.2 billion figure, Gert Nel, CEO of Gert Nel Attorneys, told Daily Investor, “We intend to ask the RAF the same question – we do not have the specifics of this figure and hence cannot confirm or deny the correctness thereof.”  A recent report by IOL states that the RAF has blocked the disbursement of R65 million

Published on 8 January 2025 The Gauteng High Court dismissal with costs last month of Discovery Health’s application for an order declaring the Road Accident Fund (RAF) to be in breach of a previous High Court order was saluted by RAF CEO Collins Letsoalo, who described it as “a watershed” moment. However, said a legal expert, it did not absolve the agency of its obligation to reimburse road accident victims for their past medical expenses. The case dates back to 2022, when the RAF instructed its staff to reject claims from car crash victims if they had already been paid by medical schemes. Letsoalo said Discovery Health “must know we are coming for our money they have claimed illegally from the RAF”. He referred to paragraphs in the judgment saying the RAF was not an insurer, and said he had claimed for some time “that the RAF is a social

Gert Nel Incorporated, and particularly our managing partner Mr Gert Nel, in his personal capacity, has fallen victim to a smear campaign orchestrated by the Road Accident Fund led by their CEO Collins Letsoalo. The attack is rooted in the fact that the executive and Board of the RAF had been called on their unlawful reform and mismanagement of the RAF. See in this regard various publications in which our Mr. Nel has highlighted the utter disregard of the rule of law and the Court, resulting in serious prejudice to all road crash victims. Despite calling a media briefing to address the issues raised, Mr. Letsoalo, seemingly unable to prove the contrary, opted to orchestrate a false and defamatory innuendo of corruption as aired and published on various media platforms. RAF spokesperson Mr. Macintosh Pholela also joined in spreading more falsities and unsubstantiated rhetoric to silence the voice of truth.