The government suffered a major setback late yesterday with the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria declaring the promulgated regulations for level 3 and 4 unconstitutional and invalid.
Judge Norman Davis ruled that the declaration of the state of disaster in response to the Covid-19 pandemic was rational, but that most of the promulgated regulations for level 3 and 4 were not rationally connected to the objectives of slowing the rate of infection, or limiting the spread.
The court said: ‘Insofar as the “lockdown regulations” do not satisfy the “rationality test”, their encroachment on and limitation of rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights contained in the Constitution are not justifiable in an open and democratic society based on human dignity, equality and freedom as contemplated in Section 36 of the Constitution.’
The court suspended the declaration of invalidity for a period of 14 days to allow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, in consultation with Cabinet colleagues, to review, amend and republish the regulations with ‘due consideration to the limitation each regulation has on the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights’.
Until then, Level 3 regulations remain in force.
The cigarette ban did not form part of the judgment, the court said, as it was subject to separate legal actions.
In a statement late yesterday, the Cabinet said it ‘has taken note of’ the outcome and would ‘make a further statement once it has fully studied the judgment’.
The ruling follows an urgent application challenging the validity of the declaration of a national state of disaster and the subsequent regulations brought by attorney Reyno de Beer and the Liberty Fighters Network.
The court found that the regulations ‘in a substantial number of instances are not rationally connected to the objectives of slowing the rate of infection or limiting the spread’ of Covid-19, and that the government had not produced any bona fide evidence that its means of enforcing the lockdown were ‘justifiable’, and could thus be deemed arbitrary and unlawful.
Businesslive reported that leading property group Pam Golding said it was cutting head office staff and reducing branch offices. The group said it was also bracing itself for significant pressure on the housing market, warning that South Africa’s GDP could decline by as much as 10% in 2020.
CEO Andrew Golding was quoted as saying: ‘The global pandemic has shut down and disrupted economies worldwide and SA’s economy has not escaped the dire impact, with the real-estate industry in particular brought to the brink of collapse.’
Fifty more Covid-19-related deaths were reported yesterday, bringing the toll to 755, while the number of cases rose to 35 812.
In other virus-related news
- The World Bank said the global economy was facing ‘staggeringly large’ losses and the recovery effort was being hampered by a shortage of resources to make up for the damage caused by the pandemic;
- Chinese authorities said they succeeded in testing the entire population of Wuhan (officials said 9.89 million people, though the city’s population is given as 11 million) between 14 May and 1 June. The official People’s Daily newspaper said that about 300 people tested positive for the virus but had exhibited no symptoms (approximately 0.003%). Wuhan was the original epicentre of the virus outbreak, with more than 50 000 confirmed cases. Its citizens spent 76 days in lockdown during the peak of the outbreak;
- India registered a new record daily spike with 8 392 new infections. The world’s second most populous nation now has 190 000 cases, and 5 394 deaths; and
- There are now 6.2 million confirmed global cases and 375 000 deaths.