The Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are applying pressure on the government to demonstrate greater accountability.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) argues in Constitutional Court papers that the national lockdown under the Disaster Management Act (DMA) is unconstitutional, and has called for legislation to be amended to give the National Assembly more oversight powers.
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has called for Parliament to be convened to give MPs the opportunity to put questions directly to President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Cabinet on lockdown rules and spending.
The DA has mounted legal challenges on two aspects of the lockdown.
It brought an urgent application in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria arguing that President Cyril Ramaphosa should have declared a state of emergency, and that the regulations enforced under the DMA are unconstitutional.
In a separate action in the Constitutional Court, DA interim leader John Steenhuisen argues that the DMA violates the constitutional principle of the separation of powers because there is no effective parliamentary oversight.
He submitted that the DMA does not allow for the oversight role that the Constitution requires of a state of emergency.
Said Steenhuisen: ‘For seven weeks, the country has existed in under what can only be described as a de facto state of emergency, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. South Africans have been locked up in their houses. Businesses have been precluded from operating. Thousands have been arrested. A curfew has been imposed while the army, 76 000 strong, patrols the streets outside. And yet the president has not declared a state of emergency … and Parliament has been given no say in any of this.’
He said the application was aimed at ending the lockdown, but ensuring parliamentary oversight of the national state of disaster.
The EFF said MPs were unhappy about the president’s failure to answer written questions, and did not believe virtual meetings were sufficient.
EFF spokesperson Vuyani Pambo said in a statement: ‘We demand the immediate and urgent reopening of Parliament because, since announcing the lockdown measures to contain the rapid spread of Covid-19, the president and members of Cabinet have not been held accountable.’
The party proposed using the Tshwane Events Centre as the most convenient venue for a sitting.
Positive cases in South Africa rose by 831 to 14 355, with 14 more deaths raising the toll to 26.
It was reported yesterday that advocates Nazeer Cassim SC and Erin-Dianne Richards, who had threatened to take the government to court over the constitutionality of the National Coronavirus Command Centre (NCCC), had decided to ‘take a step back’ and would no longer pursue their intended legal action.
In a letter on 15 May, attorney Luqmaan Hassan from RHK Attorneys announced that Cassim and Richards had ‘elected to extricate themselves from any potential litigation in their personal capacities against the government’.
He wrote that their decision was made in light of growing discourse over the NCCC as well as ‘our clients’ engagements with the Presidency to date; the birth of numerous legal proceedings on constitutional questions, and guidance from the rules and ethics of their professional bodies and colleagues’.
Fin24 reported that Impala Platinum (Implats) had temporarily shut down its Marula mine in Limpopo Province after finding a ‘cluster’ of positive Covid-19 cases.
The company said the decision followed its ‘stringent and comprehensive screening, testing and tracing protocols’ having identified 19 positive cases, all of which were asymptomatic.
All the employees had been isolated and visited by Department of Health officials at the quarantine site.
Implats said: ‘Of these cases, 14 were identified as a result of proactive testing of employees returning to work. None of these employees had started work at the mine.’ Of the remaining five, one was the primary contact and the remaining four were found through contact tracing.
The company added: ‘Significantly, 17 of the confirmed cases reside locally, suggesting the prevalence of Covid-19 among local communities is far higher than the company’s initial estimates had indicated.’
A new study by University of Cape Town researchers Corne van Walbeek, Samantha Filby and Kirsten van der Zee has found that the lockdown ban on cigarettes ‘is failing on what it was supposed to do’.
Based on a survey of 16 000 respondents, the researchers noted: ‘While the original intention of the ban was to support public health, the current disadvantages of the ban may well outweigh the advantages. Smokers are buying cigarettes in large quantities despite the lockdown, and unusual brands are becoming prevalent.’
This meant ‘the current sales ban is feeding an illicit market that will be increasingly difficult to eradicate when the lockdown and the Covid-19 crisis is over. It was an error to continue with the cigarette sales ban into Level 4 lockdown’. Equally, the ban did not make ‘economic sense’.
The researchers advise lifting the ban on cigarette sales ‘as soon as possible’.
In other virus-related news
- Russia on Saturday recorded its highest daily death toll yet from the coronavirus while new cases fell to the lowest level in two weeks. Russia is in second place in the world to the United States with 272 043 cases, with 9 200 new cases announced Saturday, the lowest number since May 2;
- Italy announced that it would reopen to European tourists from early June and scrap a 14-day mandatory quarantine period. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte enforced an economically crippling shutdown in early March to counter a pandemic that has so far killed more than 31 500 people in Italy;
- Iran on Saturday reported 35 new deaths from the coronavirus, the lowest number since March 7 despite infections rising, and announced a further relaxation of Covid-19-related closures. The new deaths brought the overall toll to 6 937; and
- American department store JC Penney filed for bankruptcy, becoming the latest company to be hit by Covid-19. The 118-year-old store sells clothing, cosmetics and jewellery at over 850 locations across the country. It employs more than 80,000 people.