Africa-Press – South-Africa. Western Cape Mobility MEC Ricardo Mackenzie was granted an order against only one of the eight taxi operators whose vehicles were filmed at a blockade near the Cape Town International Airport on Monday.
Another operator cited in the application, gave an undertaking that he too would abide by this order. He was not present in court so the order could not be made against him.
None of the operators had lawyers, and the one operator who did arrive spoke for himself for the time being.
Western Cape High Court Judge Pat Gamble said there was not enough before him to deal with the station deck blockade on 1 August to interdict people whose number plates were filmed by CCTV on Chris Barnard Avenue.
These details were retrieved from registration systems by the mobility department to build a case against the group.
Gamble said the station deck incident occurred before the stayaway was called, and the vehicles might just have been trying to get into the station deck. He had nothing before him to show another reason.
The judge made it clear these were not criminal proceedings, but just to decide whether an interdict was necessary, and against whom.
He was also not sure if Chris Barnard Avenue was a provincial or national road, given that the road signage in the footage indicated a metropolitan, which falls under the City’s control, and they already had an order granted on Monday night.
For the Borcherds Quarry incident near the airport on Monday, Gamble spent hours checking whether the number plates filmed were correctly recorded, given that some were obscured by other taxis or a side mirror.
The taxi operator who was in court was asked to stand up and say whether one of the taxis was indeed his.
He said the operator did not have to say anything else about the incident, just confirm if it was his vehicle.
The man stood up and said it was his vehicle but added that he did not instruct the driver to participate or tell him to take his car to the airport.
The order was made against the taxi operator.
Gamble said Borcherds Quarry incident took place on either a national or a provincial road, so the case was stronger.
However, that matter was postponed to 9 October for everybody cited to argue why they should not be included in a final order.
An interdict application by the Stellenbosch Municipality followed.
The municipality’s lawyer said the police station was torched and shops were looted, and they want an order preventing further damage or violence.
Their matter was rolled to Friday morning to give them time to properly serve the respondents, the Kayamandi Taxi Association, and others.
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