South Africa’s lockdown regulations are invalid and unconstitutional: High Court

The alert level 3 and alert level 4 lockdown regulations have been declared invalid and unconstitutional by the Gauteng High Court.

The Ministry in the Presidency said in a media statement it has noted the ruling delivered by the High Court on 2 June 2020.

The Gauteng High Court suspended the declaration of invalidity of the regulations for 14 days, meaning that the level 3 regulations remain in effect for now.

The court has directed the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), in consultation with other ministers, to amend, review, and republish the regulations.

This must be done with due consideration to the limitation each regulation has on the rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.

The Government Communications and Information Systems (GCIS) said the Cabinet will study the judgement on alert level 3 and alert level 4 regulations.

The court action was brought by was brought by Reyno Dawid de Beer and the Liberty Fighters Network, according to The Citizen, and related to certain regulations that were put forward where rationality was questioned.

Similar court action was launched by the DA, which said that regulations have been forced on the population, but have not been subject to any safeguards that are usually in place.

Specifically, COGTA could put regulations in place without comment or oversight from parliament, and did not have to provide any reasoning as a basis.

While the High Court found that the declaration of the state of disaster in the country was rational, there were numerous regulations that did not pass the “rationality test” of serving government’s stated goal of preventing the spread of Covid-19.

In these instances, it was found that government would have to correct this.

MEDIA STATEMENT: CABINET TO STUDY JUDGEMENT ON ALERT LEVEL 4 & ALERT LEVEL 3 REGULATIONS #Level3Regulations #level3lockdown pic.twitter.com/1782vNG47q

— GCIS Media Liaison (@GCISMedia) June 2, 2020

You can read the full judgement below:

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