ActionSA calls for the immediate removal of all Covid-19 regulations

22 June 2022          

According to internal leaked documents from within the national Department of Health, the Minister is considering setting aside the ill-fated, irrational and nonsensical Covid-19 interim regulations, concerning inter alia, the wearing of masks, limitation of gatherings and entry into South Africa

This is not a coincidence.

ActionSA’s case, along with other applicants, is against the Minister of Health and his department. Running scared from embarrassment and an inevitable loss – as science proves that the regulations are no longer needed – the government is now trying to save face and to attempt to render the application academic, and make it go away quietly.

We will welcome the victory for the return of freedoms of South Africans in whichever manner it arrives, but remain  ready to continue our litigation should these regulations not be abandoned in totality.

For a considerable period of time, the continuation of these regulations has been an arbitrary infringement of the Constitutional rights of South Africans, affecting freedom of trade, movement, and even the right to political assembly. The regulations were designed and have been implemented by a government that has arbitrarily limited the freedoms of South Africans, casually and without regard for the Constitution, ostensibly in the name of “science”.

Businesses have been forced to close, livelihoods have been destroyed and the ramifications of these regulations have only served to exacerbate the fragile state of South Africa’s economy and the unemployment crisis which places the country in great peril. 

This “new” idea of now withdrawing the regulations has magically appeared at a time where ActionSA is set to appear in the Gauteng North High Court on 25 July to argue the unconstitutionality and setting aside of the permanent regulations (in the exact same format as the interim regulations), which government now concedes, are no longer necessary.

The facts are that we are fighting for the rights of all South Africans to not have their freedoms arbitrarily taken away. Whether or not this matter proceeds on 25 July 2022, we are the only political party in South Africa to have joined as a party to this case, to stand for you and to have the courage to do so.

We will not cease until these regulations are set aside in their entirety. We are proud that ActionSA pressure has assisted to bring an end to the nightmare of this arbitrary, ultra vires and irrational deprivation of our rights.

We will fix South Africa, together.

Issued by Gillian Benson, Head of Strategic Litigation, 22 June 2022