Newsletters

NHSA Newsletter

VOL. 15 (14) - 11-07-2019

 FAVOURABLE INTERIM COURT RULING IN SAAADA CASE RE BARREL CHANGES 

Dear member,

Congratulations must be extended to the South African Arms and Ammunition Dealer’s Association (SAAADA) for successfully bringing an urgent court application, which stopped SAPS from unilaterally deciding that from May 2019 they will no longer accept any application for a barrel change.  This arbitrary administrative ruling was according to SAPS taken on the grounds that barrel changes are not specifically mentioned in Section 59 of the Firearms Control Act (FCA) (Act 60 of 2000) or in Regulation 51 of the FCA Regulations (2004) and can, therefore, not be authorised (one has to wonder how it is that CFR only realised this "shortcoming" in the FCA after it has been in implementation since 2004 and after they have approved 1000s of barrel change applications up to May 2019).

Due to SAAADA’s court initiative, however, Judge A Millar on 11 July 2019, in the Gauteng High Court issued an interim interdict, which prevents SAPS (actually CFR) from implementing the policy decision not to authorise any application for barrel changes.  He also ordered that SAPS have to accept all applications for barrel changes, and that each application must be evaluated on its own merit.

Judge Millar also ordered SAPS to pay the legal costs of SAAADA and their legal team.

SAAADA must receive our gratitude for taking the fight to SAPS against their arbitrary administrative ruling in this instance.  In their endeavour SAAADA on their own benefitted the whole legal firearm owning community in this country; albeit that some financial contributions were made by NHSA as well as a number of different associations and organisations towards costs for this court case.

Members can read the full interim judgment of Judge Millar on this case HERE

Kind regards

Natshoot office

This Newsletter also sent to all members via Email om 11-07-2019