The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) will no longer pursue its planned urgent High Court application to suspend Phase 2 of the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (AARTO) rollout after the Road Traffic Infringement Agency (RTIA) disclosed details of the Independent Appeals Tribunal that had not previously been made public.
The organisation says, however, that the disclosure has shifted its focus towards broader questions about transparency, the Tribunal’s appointment process, and whether motorists have been given sufficient information to exercise their rights under the amended AARTO system.
Phase 2 of AARTO came into effect on 1 July after years of delays and legal challenges, extending the administrative traffic enforcement system to 62 participating municipalities.
Although the long-awaited demerit points system has not yet been introduced, traffic infringements in those municipalities are now processed under AARTO’s administrative framework, with electronic notifications and stricter timelines for motorists to pay, challenge, or transfer liability for infringements.
Once the demerit system is brought into operation, repeat traffic offenders will accumulate demerit points, with persistent offenders ultimately facing the suspension or cancellation of their driving licences.
When Moonstone reported on OUTA’s intended urgent application in July, one of the organisation’s principal arguments was that Phase 2 had been brought into operation before the Independent Appeals Tribunal was in place, leaving motorists without one of the safeguards envisaged by the amended legislation. OUTA also challenged the validity of the 2026 AARTO Regulations, arguing they had been introduced without meaningful public consultation.
Read: OUTA seeks urgent court order to halt AARTO rollout
According to OUTA, RTIA’s response to the proposed urgent application included, for the first time, details of the Tribunal’s members and how they had been appointed.
Although that removes one of the grounds on which OUTA intended to seek urgent relief, the organisation says it has raised a different question: why information about the Tribunal was only disclosed after litigation was threatened.
“This isn’t simply about whether the Tribunal exists,” said OUTA executive director of accountability Advocate Stefanie Fick.
“It is about transparency. Government expected millions of South Africans to comply with AARTO from 1 July, yet the public was never proactively told who would hear their appeals, how the Tribunal was appointed, or how motorists could access the appeals process.”
Call for transparency
The Independent Appeals Tribunal forms part of the amended AARTO framework and is intended to hear certain appeals against administrative decisions made under the system.
OUTA says it repeatedly requested information from RTIA about the Tribunal before announcing its intended urgent application. Rather than providing the information, RTIA advised that the organisation should submit a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).
Only after litigation commenced, OUTA says, did RTIA disclose the names of the Tribunal members and details of the recruitment process.
“The obvious question is why it took threatened litigation for this information to be disclosed,” Fick said.
“South Africans should not need a PAIA request to discover who has the authority to decide appeals that could ultimately affect their driving licences.”
Although RTIA has now confirmed that the Tribunal exists, OUTA says there is still no readily accessible information on the agency’s website explaining who serves on the Tribunal, how appeals are lodged, how the Tribunal operates, or what motorists can expect from the process.
“Transparency is not achieved simply because information exists somewhere within government. It must be readily accessible to the people whose rights depend on it,” Fick said.
Broader challenge continues
Having received additional information from RTIA, OUTA says it has reassessed the need for urgent relief relating to the Appeals Tribunal.
The organisation will instead investigate whether the Tribunal appointments comply with the legislation, why details of the Tribunal and its processes were not proactively disclosed before AARTO came into operation, and whether motorists have meaningful access to information explaining how to exercise their rights.
OUTA says its broader challenge to the implementation of AARTO will continue, including its concerns about the late publication of the 2026 AARTO Regulations and the lack of public consultation.
“Our intended urgent application has already achieved one important outcome; however, issues pertaining to late submission of regulations without public engagement, amongst other things, remain a serious concern,” said OUTA chief executive Wayne Duvenage.
“Information that should have been available before AARTO came into operation has finally been disclosed. That answers one question, but it raises several more.”
Moonstone asked RTIA for comment on OUTA’s claims and the accessibility of information relating to the Independent Appeals Tribunal. No response had been received by the time of publication.
