THE government’s refusal to pay compensation for firearms handed in under the year 2000 Firearms Control Act is being challenged in court as unconstitutional.

The Justice Alliance of SA (Jasa) said it has filed an application in the Cape High Court to force Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula to draw up compensation guidelines as required by the Act.

It was also seeking to have struck down a clause in the Act allowing him to take “financial constraints on the State” into consideration in establishing those guidelines.

Jasa director John Smyth said in an affidavit that the Constitution contained no such qualification in its section on deprivation of property.

He said Nqakula and the national commissioner of police had “overtly, arbitrarily and persistently” refused to comply with section 137 of the Act, which required the minister to draw up the guidelines.

Because of the difficulties and delays in obtaining licences, both firearms dealers and individuals had been forced to surrender firearms.

“Section 137 of the Act is ignored, compensation cannot be obtained and therefore a pattern of arbitrary deprivation of property ensues,” Smyth said, citing a KwaZulu-Natal dealer in 2006 who surrendered several hundred firearms, with an estimated value of over R2million to the police, and claimed compensation.

Last year the police’s acting head of firearms control ruled that she did not qualify for compensation.

Smyth accused the police of procedural unfairness, saying most compensation applications were rejected out of hand, ignored or simply filed away.

“No reasons are given, let alone written reasons as required by the Constitution,” he said.

Jasa, based in Cape Town, describes itself as a “coalition of corporations, individuals and churches committed to upholding and fighting for justice and the highest moral standards in South African society” . — Sapa