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Cape Town - Following the dismissal of the City of Cape Town’s application for leave to appeal in the Western Cape High Court, the City will immediately petition the Supreme Court of Appeal, it said on Friday.
On Friday morning October 10 2014, Judge Ashley Binns-Ward of the Western Cape High Court dismissed the City’s application for leave to appeal against his judgment delivered on August 28 2014.
According to the City the application was dismissed on a procedural aspect and not on substantive issues and the City will immediately be petitioning the Supreme Court of Appeal for leave to appeal.
Binns-Ward referred to the "real issues in the case" as being the legality of the decision to declare toll roads, and found that an appeal of his judgment in the secrecy application would not lead to a resolution of the issues in that case.
The City disagrees.
READ: Cape tolls battle set to continue
In the City’s opinion, the "case" should refer to the case in which the judgment sought to be appealed was made - that is the secrecy application.
Any appeal in that case would dispose of real issues, if not all the issues, according to the City.
The City also said on Friday it disagrees with an opinion piece by Vusi Mona, head of the communication department of the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral), printed in the Argus newspaper on October 8.
In it Mona indicated that Sanral will make full disclosure of the information pertaining to the Winelands toll tender once the final tenders have been awarded.
"In fact Judge Binns-Ward agreed with the City that the competitive phase of the tender ended once the Protea Parkways Consortium was selected as the preferred tender," said the City.
"What Mona means is that Sanral will only disclose this information after it has signed a concession contract when it is too late to change the essential aspects of the tender contracts, such as the scope of the upgrades, the toll fees, and the profit margin."
READ: Sanral loses secrecy bid for Cape tolls
Sanral has been interdicted by the City from concluding the tender contract, pending the outcome of the review application.
The City also said Sanral failed to mention in the opinion piece that it was unsuccessful in proving to the court that any of the information it is seeking to keep from the public is in fact confidential.
"The reason the court nevertheless held that only parties to the proceedings should have access to such information at this time, was based on a specific interpretation of the common law and reference to a procedural rule of court. It is these aspects that the City is seeking to challenge on appeal," said the City.
"If Sanral is indeed committed to transparency, it would not continue in its efforts to keep the information, which is not confidential, from the public – based solely on a novel interpretation of the procedural requirements relating to disclosure of documents filed as part of litigation proceedings."
ALSO READ: Cape tolls secrecy relates to tenders
- Fin24
