Bloemfontein - Putting into law a system dealing with compensation for firearms surrendered implies that such compensation should be fully paid, the Supreme Court of Appeal heard on Thursday.
“Clearly these provisions were not set up for exceptional aspects, but for large numbers that would apply for compensation,” said Peter Hordes, counsel for Justice Alliance of SA (Jasa).
The SCA heard an appeal by Jasa on aspects of market value compensation for firearms surrendered to police.
The appeal relates to 2009, when the Western Cape High Court gave the minister for safety and security 90 days to establish guidelines for the payment of compensation.
At issue are firearms voluntary surrendered to the State in circumstances as contemplated in section 137(5) of the Firearms Control Act (FCA).
Hordes submitted the purpose of the FCA by the legislature was to get people to have fewer firearms.
He said the act also indicated how the state should dispose of excess firearms in cases of forfeitures, seizures and voluntary surrenders.
Hordes submitted Section 137 of the act made it clear that firearm owners who surrendered firearms to the state voluntarily under this provision would be compensated.
It even prescribed the procedures for claiming.
Andrew Breitenbach, for the Minister of Police, submitted the compensation aspect in the act only arose in the instance of a firearm of “special value”.
The Central Firearms Registry (CFR) would receive a firearm by voluntary surrender, or a consignment of firearms, and decide it would have a “special value” to the state. Then the issue of compensation arose.
Breitenbach submitted someone who handed an unwanted firearm in was not entitled to compensation, except if the state could get value from it.
Referring to the guidelines, Breitenbach submitted it should be treated only as guidelines.
He said the basis amounts for possible compensation, set out in the guidelines, were there to reach a goal of getting firearms out of the public domain.
He said market value was irrelevant to this aim and was not the overriding criteria of the guidelines.
Earlier, Jasa contended that the guidelines were a refusal to pay compensation, not a guideline to pay compensation.
After the hearing, Jasa director John Smyth said the case was important to thousands of citizens in South Africa.
“Thousands of people who surrendered their firearms between 2005 and 2009 had been led to believe by police, because they filled in a form, that they would receive compensation.” - Sapa