The Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) must compensate all road accident victims
Image: Facebook/RAF
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has ruled that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) must compensate all road accident victims, including undocumented foreign nationals, finding that “any person” in the RAF Act includes them.
IOL previously reported that the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria struck down a RAF directive requiring foreign nationals to prove legal presence in South Africa at the time of injury to claim compensation.
A full bench of three judges, led by Judge Norman Davis, set aside the directive to the extent that, in respect of foreign claimants, it requires that proof of identity must be accompanied by documentary proof that the claimant was legally in South Africa at the time of the accident.
"These accidents don't discriminate in respect of the victims thereof between race, gender, age or between illegal foreigners and citizens of this country,” Davis said at the time.
He added that the court can find nothing in the Act that can be interpreted as excluding foreign nationals from claiming.
“Neither the (transport) minister nor the RAF are in law permitted, either by way of a ‘policy decision’ or by way of a novel interpretation of the Act, to amend or limit the ambit of the Act. To do so would be beyond their powers.”
However, the RAF appealed to the SCA, arguing that undocumented foreign nationals should not fall within the compensation scheme and that its policy was aimed at ensuring claims were tied to accidents that occurred in South Africa, preventing fraud, and avoiding conflict with the Immigration Act.
The SCA dismissed the appeal with costs, finding that the RAF Act makes no exclusion based on immigration status and that “any person” includes all road accident victims in the country.
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