New legal challenges tackle South Africa’s lockdown rules
Government is facing a number of court challenges as businesses, opposition parties and individual South Africans take issue with the country’s lockdown regulations.
On Wednesday (17 June), opposition party the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) will approach the Pretoria High Court to challenge the constitutionality of the Disaster Management Act and the decision to declare a national state of disaster.
BusinessDay reports that this will be the first court challenge to the constitutionality of the legislation, which is being used as the framework for the Covid-19 lockdown.
The DA also plans to approach the Constitutional Court directly over similar concerns around the Disaster Management Act.
In a separate matter, the Western Cape High Court heard a case on Monday (15 June) which focused on the lawfulness and rationality of the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC).
The case, which was brought by a group of citizens, focused on a number of issues around the NCCC including whether it is Constitutionally valid.
“There is no provision in the Constitution, there is no provision in the Disaster Management Act that confers a power on the president and or the Cabinet to establish a committee like the NCCC,” the group argued.
Judgement in the case was reserved and will be handed down at a later date.
Cigarette ban
A number of South Africans are also eagerly awaiting the High Court judgement surrounding South Africa’s ban on the sale of cigarettes.
The case was brought against government by the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita) which argued that the banning of the sale of cigarettes is irrational.
While government argued that smoking could lead to an increase in coronavirus cases and even death, Fita said that this is not an issue that is limited to cigarettes.
The judgement is set to be emailed to the parties, with Fita warning that misleading messages circulating on social media have incorrectly stated that the judgement has been handed down.
“We have been made aware of a number of communications doing the rounds on different social media platforms claiming that the Pretoria High Court has made a ruling on the cigarette ban matter. This is not correct and is misleading,” Fita said.
“We will make the necessary announcement once we are in receipt of the judgment from the Pretoria High Court. We thank you as always for your continued support throughout this entire period.”
In a separate matter, Die Burger reports that the government has missed its deadline to file a reply to a similar challenge being brought by British American Tobacco (Batsa).
The matter is set to be heard at the end of June.
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