Pretoria - The government is not off the hook in the various legal challenges it is facing despite moving the country to level 2 of the lockdown at midnight.
President Cyril Ramaphosa announced on Saturday evening that the ban on alcohol and tobacco sales would be lifted and the revised regulations gazetted, but wine farmers and tobacco manufacturers, among others, are not abandoning their court battles.
They say it is important to obtain legal clarity from the courts on the government’s decision in the first place to ban the sale of these items under the Disaster Management Act.
The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita) said the ban on the sale of tobacco products to fight Covid-19, should not have been imposed. A full Bench of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, earlier slammed Fita’s application to lift the ban under levels 3 to 5 of the lockdown regulations. Three judges found the government’s decision to be rational.
Judge President Dunstan Mlambo, who headed the three-judge Bench, also refused Fita leave to appeal against the judgment and said the court concluded that there were no good prospects of Fita succeeding on appeal.
But the Supreme Court of Appeal granted Fita leave to appeal shortly before the unbanning of the sale of tobacco products was announced.
Fita said legal clarity was needed on the banning of tobacco sales in the first place; this was a novel legal issue.
The Southern Agri Initiative and about 120 wine farmers are also still set on going ahead with their legal bid against the regulations to ban the sale of alcohol - wine in particular - under lockdown levels 3, 4 and 5. Francois Rossouw, chief executive of the organisation, said at this stage they were going ahead. “The case is set down for August 24.”
The organisation is also forging ahead with its application on behalf of game farmers whose businesses suffered a severe blow as hunting was only allowed during level 3. The industry said about R2billion in income was lost during this time, as it was unable to host international hunters.
The Helen Suzman Foundation is also going ahead with its urgent application to direct both Parliament and the National Executive to take immediate steps to prepare legislation that regulates the State’s response to the threat posed by Covid-19. The foundation’s Anton van Dalsen said despite the government’s eased lockdown rules, “it is a matter of principle. There are legal issues to be resolved”.
It is objecting to the“staggering powers” given to Co-operative Governance Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma to make decisions of national importance during the pandemic. It will argue that Parliament and the Cabinet is “missing in action” and failed in their duty to initiate legislation that regulated the state’s response.
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Pretoria News