Constitutional Court ends tug-of-war over eNatis

The Constitutional Court has had the last word in a drawn-out labour dispute between Tasima – the company that built the electronic National Traffic Information System (eNaTIS) – and the transport department’s road traffic management corporation (RTMC).

The court yesterday found the RTMC was legally obliged to absorb some 66 former staff members of Tasima’s who were left in the lurch when the company was forced to hand the eNaTIS over.

In 2016, in the wake of a protracted tug of war over eNaTIS, the court found an agreement to extend Tasima’s contract with the RTMC was invalid and ordered the former to hand the system over to the latter. Tasima subsequently approached the Labour Court and secured a declaration that the RTMC was obligated to absorb the staff in terms of section 197 of the Labour Relations Act.

The findings were upheld on appeal to the Labour Appeal Court, prompting the RTMC to turn to the Constitutional Court. In handing down judgment yesterday, Justice Leona Theron found that after eNaTIS was handed over, the RTMC ran “the entire undertaking that Tasima had previously performed”.

“It is clear that the business carried on by Tasima was, immediately after the transfer, carried on by the RTMC on the same premises, using the same assets, and performing an identical function,” she said.

Also read: Expert warns against out-of-date eNatis info as e-tolls blacklisting bites

As a result, Theron found there was no basis to “disturb” the findings of the Labour Court and the Labour Appeal Court and dismissed the RTMC’s appeal. She also dismissed Tasima’s appeal to an order handed down by the Labour Appeal Court suspending the enforcement of the declaration handed down pending the finalisation of the appeal process.

She did, however, uphold a cross-appeal launched by Tasima. The Labour Court originally found the date of transfer to be 5 April 2017 – the date on which RTMC actually took control of the eNaTIS – but on appeal, the Labour Appeal Court found it was 23 June 2015 – the date from which the court previously found the extension agreement was invalid.

Theron found that if the effective date was held to be 23 June 2015, then “responsibility for, among other things, employee taxes owed by the business would be imputed to the RTMC”.

– bernadettew@citizen.co.za

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