This is an application for leave to appeal against the judgment and order of the North Gauteng High Court1 (High Court), handed down by Fabricius AJ. That court dismissed a constitutional challenge to amendments to the Road Accident Fund Act, 19962 (RAF Act). The impugned amending provisions were introduced by the Road Accident Fund Amendment Act, 20053 (amendment).

The following order is made:

1. The application for leave to appeal is granted.
2. The appeal is dismissed save to the extent set out below.
3. The appeal against the order of the High Court dismissing the applicants’ constitutional challenge to Regulation 5(1) issued by the Minister for Transport on 21 July 2008 in terms of section 17(4B)(a) of the Road Accident Fund Act 56 of 1996, is upheld.
4. It is declared that Regulation 5(1) is inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.

(e) Until the Minister for Transport prescribes a new tariff for health services in terms of section 17(4B)(a) of the Road Accident Fund Act, a third party who has sustained bodily injury and whom the Road Accident Fund is obliged to compensate as contemplated in sections 17(4)(a), 17(5) and (6) of the Road Accident Fund Act, is entitled to compensation or health services as if he or she had been injured before the Road Accident Fund Amendment Act, 19 of 2005 came into operation.

(f) The Minister for Transport is ordered to pay one third of the costs of the first to the eleventh applicants, which shall include costs of two counsel.