Staff Reporter
The North Gauteng High Court has declared alert Levels 3 and 4 of the national lockdown regulations unconstitutional and invalid.
The Pretoria court however suspended the declaration of invalidity for a period of 14 business days to allow the government time to address the issues at fault.
This means the alert Level 3 regulations which kicked in on Monday remain in place for now.
“The regulations promulgated by the Minister of (Cooperative Governance) and Traditional Affairs in terms of the Disaster Management Act . . . are declared unconstitutional and invalid,” read part of the judgment delivered by Justice Norman Davis.
“The declaration of the invalidity is suspended until such time as the minister (Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma), after consultation with the relevant cabinet ministers, reviews, amends and republishes the regulations . . . with due consideration to the limitation each regulation has on the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights contained in the Constitution.”
The court however directed that regulations around the ban on tobacco will not be affected by this order as the matter is being challenged in a separate court case.
The matter was brought by Reyno Dawid de Beer and the Liberty Fighters Network which challenged the validity of some aspects of the lockdown saying they were poorly formulated and violated people’s basic human rights.
The government said it would make a statement after it has fully studied the judgment.