News Articles
What's new?
Thousands of Road Accident Fund cases on hold
By Zelda Venter Pretoria – Several hundreds of Road Accident Fund cases, which have been enrolled in courts from this week onwards, will not be able to proceed as the RAF is not declared an essential service which is allowed to operate under level four of the lockdown regulations. This, despite the Association for the Protection of Road Accident Victims ( APRAV) calling on the government to declare the RAF as an essential service during this time. Several lawyers who deal with RAF matters have expressed their dismay, as they said they have been waiting for trial dates for months and in some cases for more than a year. One lawyer, who does not want to be named, said he has at least three clients who are paraplegics and others who have suffered severe brain damage in car accidents. “These cases have been on the roll during this time, now it has
RAF should open offices to assist crash victims
Chris Hunsinger | 07 May 2020 The Democratic Alliance (DA) is calling on the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, to issue a directive for Road Accident Fund (RAF) employees to return to work, in accordance to Covid-19 protocols, to allow for the uninterrupted processing of claims and the continued payment of beneficiaries. Road accident victims applying or waiting for payment have found it impossible to get in touch with the fund. This is because the RAF closed its doors at the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown because surprisingly, it is currently not regarded as essential services. Instead of opening offices with a limited staff compliment to process queries, the RAF has completely shut down all its communications channels. The Fund’s website now displays a message which reads: “Kindly take note that all offices of the Road Accident Fund will be closed from 26 March 2020 until further notice”. In addition
Call for Road Accident Fund to be declared essential service during lockdown
By Zelda Venter – Pretoria News Pretoria – The Association for the Protection of Road Accident Victims (APRAV) has called on the government to declare the Road Accident Fund (RAF) an essential service during the lockdown period. Tens of thousands of victims of car crashes have been awaiting payment from the RAF, following court orders or settlements. Many of these people are left out of pocket – especially during this economic crisis – and they depend heavily on their RAF payout. The fund said, in court papers issued in December, it owed the public R17 billion at that stage. It was also said the average amount which is settled and not paid to claimants each month is R4.3bn. The association has meanwhile sent a letter to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Minister for Transport Fikile Mbalula in which it substantiated why some of the
APRAV Letter to Ministers 15 April – Request for RAF as essential service during Lockdown
APRAV, The Association for the Protection of Road Accident Victims, has issued a request to declare the Road Accident Fund as an essential service during lockdown. Read the Letter here.
Billions could be saved as application by 42 firms to remain lawyers for RAF dismissed
Pretoria – In an order which could save billions of rand in expenses, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, dismissed an application by 42 law firms to remain as lawyers for the Road Accident Fund (RAF). The firms turned to the court to obtain an urgent interdict after the RAF demanded that they had to hand back all case files regarding the claims they are handling on its behalf. The RAF’s five-year service level agreement with about 103 law firms to act on its behalf in claims instituted by the public had come to an end at the end of November. The RAF then asked the lawyers to hand back the case files, as it wanted to try to see whether some of the cases can be settled. This is with the aim of saving costs and for its cases to be streamlined. According to the RAF, the panel of lawyers
Pretoria law firm to challenge ‘laborious’ RAF court directive: ‘more costs, more backlogs’
20 September 2019 – By Dan Meyer on timeslive.co.za A Pretoria law firm will launch an application at the Pretoria High Court to overturn a practice directive that it believes is leaving cases left to perish in an ever mounting backlog and the risk of enormous administrative costs. A law firm is going to the high court in Pretoria in a bid to overturn a practice directive it believes will worsen a massive case backlog in the courts. Gert Nel attorneys, which manages thousands of road accident victim cases in an attempt to resolve appropriate settlements in court, as opposed to direct settlements claimed through the Road Accident Fund (RAF), argue that the directive is overly laborious and will result in a backlog of about 6,000 cases continuing to pile up. The directive affects personal injury cases. “[Our firm] intends to file an application to have the so-called ‘Practice Directive 2’,
Law firm in bid to overturn order
20 September 2019 – By Zelda Venter in Pretoria News A PRETORIA law firm which specialises on Road Accident Fund (RAF) claims has launched an application in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to overturn a practice directive. Gert Nel Inc is arguing that the directive will micro-manage personal injury cases to such an extent that the public will have great difficulty in having their day in court. The firm will take on these directives in the same court where the directive has been established and has been practised since July 1. It is expected that a full bench – three judges – from a different division, will hear the application. This practice directive is aimed at personal injury cases such as RAF claims, medical negligence and claims following train accidents. Judge President Dunstan Mlambo earlier issued a lengthy document on how cases would be managed from now on. This document
Critics slam government’s ‘unfair’ new Road Accident Fund bill
24 August 2019 – Originally posted on iol.co.za Cape Town – Imagine you lose a limb in a car accident, or you are left brain-damaged, can never work again and the maximum benefit you can claim from the Road Accident Fund (RAF) is only R280 000 per annum? Even this amount is not guaranteed, this may be the reality for many South Africans if a draft bill on the new workings and name change to the RAF is passed by Parliament. Personal injury lawyers are spitting fire and claim the move is an attempt by the government to get its hands on the estimated R40billion that the RAF collects annually from the fuel levy. The proposed legislation will soon be discussed in the National Assembly and claims by several attorneys were strengthened this week when President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the government plans to use money from the Government Employees
Judge’s directive a major court blow for RAF claimants
14 July 2019 – By Karabo Ngoepe on iol.co.za Johannesburg – Claimants suing the Road Accident Fund, MEC of Health in Gauteng and the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) have been dealt a blow following a court directive to scrap court dates granted beyond March 31, 2020. The directive from Judge President Dunstan Mlambo to regulate the case management, trial allocation and enrolment of trial matters came into effect from July 1, 2019, in the Gauteng Division in Pretoria and the Johannesburg Local Division. “All trial matters which prior to July 1, 2019, had been allocated a trial date and that trial date falls into the period up to March 31, 2020 shall retain those trial date allocations and shall require certification in terms of the practice and directives in force as at June 30 2019. “All trial matters which, prior to July 1m 2019, have been allocated trial