RAF loses bid for leave to appeal ruling it can’t yet cut ties with attorneys

The High Court in Pretoria has shot down the Road Accident Fund’s (RAF) bid to overturn a ruling which effectively puts on ice its plans to cut ties with 103 panel attorneys contracted to it.

This month, the RAF launched an application for leave to appeal the ruling, either to a full bench or to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

The fund said it had “a reasonable apprehension of bias” on the part of Judge Wendy Hughes, who presided over the case, “possibly due to her previous directorship or employment at one of the panel attorneys, namely Hughes-Madondo Incorporated”.

“There are a number of material findings of fact by the learned judge that are so unreasonable and/or so out of kilter with the evidence that they are explicable only on the grounds of bias against RAF and in favour of the panel attorneys,” the papers said.

In dismissing the application, Hughes said the RAF had “failed to raise this issue at the appropriate time … that being before the proceedings or during the application when duly noted.

“Clearly the [fund’s] reservation of the apprehension until after the judgment is improper and unacceptable.”

The RAF had announced plans to capacitate its in-house team and terminate the panel attorney’s contracts in a bid to curb the fund’s skyrocketing legal costs.

The announcement prompted three groups of attorneys to launch separate review applications. Hughes heard all three together.

She warned that a constitutional crisis loomed and ordered that the private attorneys be allowed to stay on for at least six months to “enable the RAF to reconsider its position and retain the social responsibility net in place protecting the public”.

Hughes on Friday declined to address each of the 19 grounds of appeal the RAF raised.

“However, what I propose to do is to deal with, in my view, that which disposes of this application completely,” she said.

“I am of the view that the [fund has] not set out in their application grounds relating to the order appealed against and have instead set out grounds encompassing an analysis of the reason instead. Thus, the appeal against the reasons is bad,” Hughes said.

“In the circumstances, I find that the applications for leave to appeal have no prospects of success and there are no compelling reasons enunciated in the applications.”

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