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More legal challenges as opposition to state of disaster mounts

Details

newsBL Premium reports that as President Cyril Ramaphosa prepares to deliver his state of the nation address (Sona) on Thursday, the National Liquor Traders Council (NLT) has told him it expects him to consider scrapping the national state of disaster.

“As far as the Sona is concerned, we expect the removal of the state of disaster, the transfer of the responsibility of dealing with the pandemic to the department of health and allowing the parliamentary process to resume to hold the executive to account on how they are dealing with Covid-19,” said NLT spokesperson Lucky Ntimane on Sunday. The organisation has joined the growing call for the government to lift the national state of disaster. Sakeliga, a lobby group largely representing the interests of Afrikaans business owners, has become the latest organisation to launch a legal challenge against SA’s state of disaster, saying there was clear evidence it was being maintained unconstitutionally. Sakeliga has instructed its legal team to approach the high court for the setting aside of the classification of Covid-19 as a national disaster. Trade union Solidarity and civil rights group AfriForum also recently announced that they would launch court action to challenge the state of disaster. They argued that the pandemic was now entering an endemic phase and that the state of disaster was no longer necessary. SA has been under a state of disaster since March 2020 at the start of the global pandemic. The status has been renewed monthly, and the latest iteration is due to expire on 15 February.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Bekezela Phakathi and Amanda Khoza at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)


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