The Johannesburg municipal court, established to deal with by-law offences, appears to have failed before it has even taken off.
Out of 4 855 tickets issued by the metro police between October last year and May, only six people have appeared in court and 18 have paid admission-of-guilt fines.
The court has issued 2 169 warrants of arrest to people for failing to appear in court.
The balance or 2 662 of the tickets were withdrawn for a number of reasons, among others: defective notices, incomplete addresses, wrong court dates, no ID numbers, no offence locations, wrong or incomplete sections of by-laws, no charges or incomplete charges, and no peace officers' signature.
The City of Johannesburg has admitted that there are certain issues which are still being dealt with.
One of the problems is that the municipal court is not being advised when an admission-of-guilt fine relating to a by-law is paid.
All payments are lumped together under traffic fine payments. This is resulting in the court issuing thousands of warrants of arrest for people who fail to appear in court but, in fact, may have already paid the fine.
Another problem is that out of the thousands of warrants sent out, not one person has been arrested for failing to appear.
The main cases being heard involve illegal trading, health violations, illegal buildings and illegal posters.
The Democratic Alliance visited the court last week.
Councillor John Mendelsohn said he found "darkness and emptiness except for the prosecutor with his court roll of 37 cases" in court 35.
"When we arrived at court 35 we found the prosecutor sitting alone with a court roll of 37 cases, and yet no one had pitched up for their trials.
"The prosecutor is responsible for both the administration and legal process without any assistance.
"It was also obvious that there was poor communication between the prosecutor and Joburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) and that improving this function could alleviate the problem and the expense of having to send out warrants of arrest when admissions of guilt had already been paid to the JMPD but not communicated to the Municipal Court."
Mendelsohn said it was evident that the city administration had "not got all the tools in their box to get this project flying".
Another concern is that magisterial districts need to be revised, as early as possible, to bring the City of Johannesburg under one district.
"Furthermore, a consultant or official from the justice department should be seconded to the municipal courts to get the court into a position where it will be able to offer a world-class service.
"The municipal court is nowhere near the level at which it is presented to us in the city's Section 80 committee. Either the wool is being pulled over the eyes of the politicians, or the metro police and Johannesburg's legal department have a false sense of reality," he said.
City of Johannesburg spokesperson Virgil James said the by-law admission-of-guilt fines were being put together with traffic fines and this was causing a problem.
He said another problem was tracing people who had given incorrect addresses on the citations, but the city was working with the metro police to overcome this.