ActionSA joins legal action against Health Minister over COVID-19 regulations

ActionSA has announced that it will be joining legal action instituted against the Minister of Health by DearSA and AfriForum.

The two entities launched a court application challenging the government’s regulations for managing COVID-19 after the end of the state of disaster and want the courts to declare the regulations to be inconsistent with the constitution and invalid.

ActionsSA’s Member of Senate & Head of Strategic Litigation Advocate Gill Benson says the party is concerned that the regulations give the minister powers to create and amend legislation at a whim, with no accountability mechanisms for the abuse of such sweeping powers.

Benson says, “This legislation was passed without any public participation. While we were sleeping they said that they had extended the debate for comment to August 4, then they implemented roughly a copy and paste of edits of that same legislation anyway, notwithstanding that entities like DearSA alone have received over 280 000 objections to it.”

“So really what we’ll be doing and focusing our argument on, we are in the process of preparing our papers, we will be focusing on irrationality and the unconstitutional manner in which the regulations have been passed,” adds Benson.

Dear SA lament the extension of the National State of Disaster: