A ruling on an urgent application with which activist Michael Amushelelo rushed to the Windhoek High Court in an attempt to have newly installed speed humps removed from Windhoek’s Western Bypass road is scheduled to be delivered at the end of June.
Judge Gabriel Komboni postponed the delivery of his ruling on Amushelelo’s urgent application to 30 June after hearing oral arguments from Amushelelo and government lawyer Wilhelm Amukoto on Friday afternoon.
Amushelelo is asking the court to declare the installation of speed humps on the Western Bypass road in the vicinity of Windhoek’s Northern Industrial Area unlawful, not in compliance with the Road Traffic and Transport Act of 1999 and a public hazard.
He is also asking the court to compel the minister of works and transport and the Roads Authority (RA) to immediately, or within 24 hours after the court has issued such an order, remove the speed humps placed on the Western Bypass.
Lastly, Amushelelo is requesting the court to issue an interdict that would stop the minister and the RA from constructing or authorising any further speed humps on any national highway or designated freeway in Namibia.
In a brief sworn statement filed at the court, Amushelelo says speed humps “are strictly traffic-calming mechanisms designed exclusively for low-speed urban, residential or school zones where speed limits do not exceed 50km/h”.
Amushelelo also states: “Placing a physical obstacle of this nature on an unlit, high-speed national highway creates a sudden, unexpected trap. It is a mathematical certainty that motorists driving at legally permitted highway speeds will encounter these obstructions, lose control of their vehicles, and suffer severe mechanical failure, catastrophic multi-vehicle accidents, or fatalities.”
On the urgency of the case he filed at the court, Amushelelo claims: “Every hour these unlawful structures remain on the B1 highway, hundreds of lives are placed in active, immediate peril.”
In an answering affidavit, minister of transport Veikko Nekundi claims the concept of a “highway” does not exist in Namibian law.
The classes of roads that can be proclaimed in Namibia in terms of the Roads Ordinance of 1972 are trunk roads, main roads, district roads and farm roads, according to Nekundi.
He adds that although a trunk road may be declared a freeway in terms of the Roads Ordinance, “no such freeway has been gazetted”.
Nekundi also says Amushelelo has not stated which provision of the Road Traffic and Transport Act was violated when speed humps were placed on the Western Bypass.
Amushelelo failed to show he has the required legal standing to bring his application to court, and did not demonstrate how he has a direct and substantial interest in the outcome of the legal proceedings that he instituted, Nekundi claims.
Amushelelo “purports to act on behalf of others”, Nekundi says, adding that Amushelelo failed to state what specific rights were violated and that he wants the court to protect on behalf of others.
The speed humps were placed on a section of the Western Bypass, reportedly with the aim of slowing down traffic in an effort to prevent accidents involving pedestrians crossing the road, on 5 June, Amushelelo informed the court.
