Limiting the amount of compensation that the Road Accident Fund (RAF) has to pay for claims of loss of support is constitutional, the Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday.

However, the court found that a regulation limiting healthcare costs in the amended RAF Act was unconstitutional.

Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke also found that a provision of the RAF Act abolishing road accident victims' common law right to claim compensation for losses not compensable under the Act, was constitutional.

The Law Society of SA (LSSA), Quad Para Association, the SA Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, the Johannesburg Attorney's Association, and people injured in road accidents, had applied to the Constitutional Court to appeal a judgment handed down in the High Court in Johannesburg which had dismissed their constitutional challenge to amendments to the RAF Act.

Moseneke declared unconstitutional a regulation relating to the tariff of health care services prescribed by the amended act.

The LSSA had argued this limited the right of access to health care services guaranteed by the Constitution.

Moseneke found the regulation "inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid".

"Until the Minister for Transport prescribes a new tariff for health services... a third party who has sustained bodily injury and whom the Road Accident Fund is obliged to compensate... 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." he said in his judgment.

The respondents were the minister of transport and the Road Accident Fund.

The Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin welcomed the judgment.

"The Constitutional Court ruling upholds government and parliament's intention to ensure that Road Accident Fund's compensation is more equitable and sustainable.

"These rulings will also help to close loop-holes through which a disproportionate amount of the RAF's compensation ends up in legal professional fees and not with accident victims," he said in a statement.

The Road Accident Fund Act of 1996 was changed by the Road Accident Fund Amendment Act of 2005, which came into effect in August 2008.

This is one of three cases concerning the RAF before the Constitutional Court.

A second matter concerns an application to have a Western Cape High Court order confirmed.

The High Court declared a section of the RAF Act of 1996 invalid, and ordered that three accident victims be compensated in terms of the Act as it was amended on August 1, 2008.

The application was brought by three people, Anele Mvumvu, Louise Pedro and Bianca Smith, who were involved in serious car crashes in 2005 and 2007, before the amendment came into effect.

The amendment meant they were limited in the amount of compensation they could claim.

The High Court agreed with the three applicants that some of their basic constitutional rights had been infringed upon and declared the section invalid. This declaration must be confirmed by the Constitutional Court.

The applicants were also seeking further recourse from the Constitutional Court arguing that they should not be compensated in terms of the amended act.

A third matter dealt with the constitutionality of the limit of three years in which to lodge a claim with the Fund.

The court upheld the three-year prescription period in the RAF Act.

This ruling was handed down in matter before court between the RAF and the transport minister, and Vusumzi Mdeyide.

On March 8, 2002, Mdeyide, lodged a claim for damages after sustaining injuries in an accident on March 8, 1999. This was three years and three days after the accident.