Business lobby Sakeliga is launching a fresh legal challenge against the National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme, this time trying to counter the National Department of Health’s “delaying tactics”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NHI scheme is currently facing a multitude of legal challenges from groups representing medical aids, doctors, private businesses, unions, political parties and even the Western Cape government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legal cases range from challenging the constitutionality of the NHI Act to more specific procedural issues, including the rationality of President Cyril Ramaphosa signing the Act into law in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of the many cases it faces, the health department, through Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, has applied to the courts to consolidate the cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It argues that by rolling the cases into one, it will save the courts time and the government money, instead of dealing with each case separately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the department also wants a stay on all Constitutional challenges against the NHI until the procedural challenges are ruled on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Sakeliga, this would allow the state to continue to roll out the NHI without worrying about the delayed legal proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this time, the government could potentially cause further harm to the public and engage in potentially unconstitutional conduct, while indefinitely suspending judicial scrutiny of the laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This tactic amounts to an abuse of process by the state and a violation of constitutional accountability,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It would shield the government\u2019s deeply flawed NHI Act from judicial review, while inflicting ongoing harm on the public, taxpayers, healthcare services, and the economy.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of this, the group has now launched legal action to interdict the Department of Health’s application for a stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group argues that the proposed stay undermines constitutionalism and the rule of law, effectively barring any serious constitutional challenges to the laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would allow the executive to proceed unchecked, while depriving affected parties of their right to timely judicial review of state power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It added that the proposed stay is also prejudicial and unnecessary, placing justified legal challenges at the mercy of unrelated procedural matters raised by other parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The application for a stay is ultimately a delaying tactic, Sakeliga said, allowing the government to stop legal challenges while it proceeds with implementing and entrenching the NHI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of this, the group has also filed a conditional counter-application seeking to block any further rollout of the NHI, should the state be allowed to stay any of the legal challenges.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If the court challenges to the NHI are stayed, the rollout of the NHI should also be stayed, it argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allowing the implementation of the NHI to continue while legal challenges remain unresolved and indefinitely delayed is unconstitutional, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also risks doing unnecessary damage to healthcare services that would later have to be reversed, should the constitutional challenges to the NHI ultimately prove successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Ironically, the government’s own stated concerns about conserving public resources provide support to Sakeliga\u2019s counter-application for conditional interim relief,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “It is not the constitutional challenges to the NHI that should be halted, but the implementation of the NHI itself.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Business lobby Sakeliga is launching a fresh legal challenge against the NHI scheme, this time trying to counter the National Department of Health’s “delaying tactics”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":826962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[23892,12033,14851],"class_list":["post-840756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-opinion","tag-national-department-of-health","tag-nhi","tag-sakeliga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840756","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=840756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840764,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840756\/revisions\/840764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}