The North Gauteng High Court has declared two sections of the firearms control act unconstitutional.
The ruling was handed down on Tuesday by Justice R G Tolmay, in an application by the SA Hunters and Game Conservation Association.
The organisations president, Professor Gerhard Verdoorn, said that the two sections relate to the renewal of firearm licenses and the termination of firearm licenses.
He said at this stage the firearms licenses application process is in a mess.
"Basically we asked for two very important points in the application against the Minister of Police. First of all that Section 24 and Section 28 of the Firearms Control Act be declared unconstitutional because that is regarding renewal of firearm licenses," he said.
"At this stage it is quite a mess because there is no consistency in terms of the way police handle the renewal applications and there's also no clause, like in the case of drivers licenses where you can apply after your license has expired with the penalty clause that exists in the current act," he said.
"So, it basically criminalises a lot of people who forget to renew their applications and also the problem is that the police notifies people, either by SMS, email or telephone call, that their license is about to expire," said Professor Verdoorn.
He said Justice Tolmay had given Parliament 18 months to redraft those particular sections of the Act to make it more applicable to a modern society.
"In other words if you are late with an application you can submit an application, let us say within 90 days after a license expires but then there's a penalty clause just like in the case with drivers' licenses.”
“I think it is quite a victory for us because it's been quite a difficult thing to work through with all the renewals that have been going through or not going through, so we are very happy that the court granted this for," said Verdoorn.
