{"id":414813,"date":"2020-07-09T14:13:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-09T12:13:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=414813"},"modified":"2020-07-09T14:13:32","modified_gmt":"2020-07-09T12:13:32","slug":"court-rulings-and-lack-of-communication-feed-confusion-around-south-africas-lockdown-regulations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/414813\/court-rulings-and-lack-of-communication-feed-confusion-around-south-africas-lockdown-regulations\/","title":{"rendered":"Court rulings and lack of communication feed confusion around South Africa&#8217;s lockdown regulations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Business group\u00a0Sakeliga says that members of the public should\u00a0obtain proper legal advice for their unique\u00a0situations before\u00a0trying\u00a0to confront gaps and\u00a0illegalities in the country&#8217;s lockdown regulations.<\/p>\n<p>This is especially important in light of\u00a0wide-spread\u00a0economic distress and the credibility crisis of the regulations, lack of communication from government, and ongoing legal uncertainties, said Sakeliga chief executive officer Piet le Roux.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No one should break a legitimate regulation.\u00a0However, the reality is that the ambiguities in the regulations, court rulings, contradictory ministerial\u00a0pronouncements\u00a0and economic distress force people\u00a0into\u00a0unclear\u00a0legal positions, whether they intentionally confront regulations or not.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sakeliga\u00a0therefore\u00a0emphasises:\u00a0obtain proper legal advice before\u00a0trying\u00a0to\u00a0challenge or\u00a0daringly\u00a0interpret the lockdown regulations,\u00a0so that you understand the risks of your actions to\u00a0yourself, your staff, and customers and clients.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Le Roux highlighted the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/404291\/south-africas-lockdown-regulations-are-invalid-and-unconstitutional-high-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent<\/a> <\/strong>Gauteng High Court case brought by the Liberty Fighters Network in which the court ruled that the country&#8217;s lockdown regulations are &#8216;invalid&#8217; and &#8216;unconstitutional&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is true that court rulings on this mean that the government only has until 14 July\u00a02020\u00a0to correct certain regulations, including unlawful\u00a0criminalisation\u00a0clauses.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One interpretation of the verdict \u2013 which our legal advice states is not correct \u2013 would be that the criminalisation of certain\u00a0alcohol and cigarette sales cannot lead to prosecution.\u00a0Sakeliga\u00a0warns against this interpretation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have been provided with legal advice that any action in violation of the regulations \u2013 whether criminal or not \u2013 could have legal consequences,\u00a0including\u00a0for example\u00a0arrest\u00a0in the case of\u00a0refusal\u00a0to execute\u00a0police\u00a0instructions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Le Roux said that Sakeliga has subsequently written to government, asking it to address the uncertainty following judgements in the LFN case. The group specifically requested that it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Instruct the SAPS that no arrests for violations of certain lockdown regulations relevant to the LFN case may take place;<\/li>\n<li>Disclose\u00a0those new standing instructions\u00a0in the public interest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;We emphasise: many of the lockdown regulations are unconstitutional and unreasonable. The actions of some ministers during this Covid-19 period were even harmful,\u00a0disgraceful\u00a0and petty,\u00a0despite efforts\u00a0by others to protect public health in good faith.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The unnecessary economic damage of the lockdown, which could have been approached very differently, creates an acute\u00a0challenge\u00a0for people\u00a0wanting\u00a0to put food on the table.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Given these factors, it\u00a0is\u00a0understandable that people would\u00a0want to challenge the regulations, but\u00a0it\u00a0should not be done\u00a0without\u00a0careful consideration of\u00a0personal legal positions and without personal legal advice,&#8221; Le Roux said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/414729\/high-probability-of-load-shedding-starting-today-eskom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">High probability of load shedding starting today: Eskom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Business group\u00a0Sakeliga says that members of the public should\u00a0obtain proper legal advice for their unique\u00a0situations before\u00a0trying\u00a0to confront gaps and\u00a0illegalities in the country&#8217;s lockdown regulations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":384181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-414813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414813"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414845,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414813\/revisions\/414845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}