2005 Volume 1
Processing Of Appeals
"On the positive side, Charlie's finallyconvinced them he needs a firearm."
Cape Times 2005/01/05
by Martin Hood
Judging from previous experience, which I hope will be repeated in the new Appeal Board the process is as follows:
Your licence is refused. You lodge an appeal. Your file is drawn from the Central Firearms Registry. Your appeal is inserted and is sent down to the Appeal Board that is on the ground floor of the same building as the Central Firearms Registry.
There it in the past was merely put in a pile and was picked up and dealt with by the Chairman of the Appeal Board or his deputies as and when they got around to it. They have now computerised it to comply with the new Firearms Control Act in order to generate an acknowledgment of receipt of the appeal. Judging by the letters that I am receiving they are currently processing for acknowledgment purposes only, appeals that were lodged in October 2004.
Now that there is, so to speak a queuing system, presumably the appeals will be dealt with on the basis of the oldest ones registered on the system being dealt with first working there way through to the ones that have been recently lodged. There is nothing formal in the process in that the Appeal Board sits around a table in the appeals room, reads your documents and considers whether your appeal should be granted or not. In the past, at least, two persons had to make a decision to grant the appeal but in practice a decision was made by one and was merely rubber stamped by another member of the Appeal Board.
It is all very informal and I have often popped into the Appeal Board, with or without an appointment to discuss specific files and never experienced any problems. However, I cannot comment on the attitude and approach of the new appeals board but please bear in mind that there is a far more formalistic procedure stipulated in the Firearms Control Act to deal with appeals.
I noted towards the end of the term of the last appeals board that more and more, reference is made to the Firearms Control Act in obtaining guidance as to what should be done with appeals under the Arms & Ammunitions Act. This was of course incorrect but the opportunity never presented itself to do anything about it. We can presume however, that the new appeals board, being appointed by the Minister and ”visited” by him will mean that the Appeal Board will be less objective than in the past. This is complicated by the lack of a policy statement from them indicting how they will treat appeals and what they expect to see in appeals. For the record SAGA is in the process of trying to obtain clarity in this regard.
It is my estimate that it will take at least 8 months for appeals to be dealt with from the date of them being lodged. This is not a scientific estimate in any way and is complicated by virtue of the fact that the Appeal Board in the past only sat part-time and because of the volume of appeals having increased ten fold over those up until the end of 2003.
Appeal Board Firing Again
Star January 17, 2005 - Staff Reporter.
The Firearms Appeal Board has been reconstituted after more than six months of inactivity, after the resignations of many of its members.
Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula met last week with newly appointed members of the Firearms Appeal Board in Pretoria.
This comes after the Board had been inactive for nearly six months because it had no chairperson and members, causing a huge backlog in appeals by people who had their gun licences turned down.
Safety and Security spokesperson Trevor Bloem said Nqakula had wished the Board well in their ”challenging task” of dealing with the backlog and reviewing appeals.
The Board considers appeals against the refusal of firearm licences, permits, authorisations, and unfit declarations by the police.
The new Board consists of retired judge Joshua Khumalo (chairperson), advocate Sindile Majokweni, Zanele Nhlayisa and Patrick Mongwe.
The Appeals Board is once again meeting. If you have any queries about an outstanding appeal or future appeal please contact them on:
Telephone (012) 353-6264 / 353-6252
Fax (012) 353-6269
Post to: The Chairperson,
Appeals Board, Private Bag X811, Pretoria, 0001.