DA site back up after donations avalanche

16 May 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is heartened by the many South Africans who are contributing whatever they can towards our legal challenges against irrational and unconstitutional aspects of the current hard lockdown.

DA leader John Steenhuisen announced on Thursday 14 May that the party would be seeking legal remedy through the courts on irrational measures such as the e-commerce ban (which was dropped within hours of the DA's court challenge), the 3-hour exercise window and the military-enforced curfew.

Furthermore, we are also challenging the constitutionality of aspects of the Disaster Management Act that concentrate massive law-making powers in the hands of Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the Minister of Co-operative Governance, without any oversight from Parliament, and enable her to delegate such powers to other Ministers, who are equally unaccountable. They can extend this power indefinitely.

Already in the past seven weeks, they have issued over 40 sets of regulations, comprising hundreds of pages of new legislation, governing almost every aspect of our lives, from when we may leave our homes and for what purpose, who we may visit, when and where we may exercise, what we may buy and what we may wear - to name a few.

This violation of fundamental rights requires increased and rigorous oversight, not less.

Turning an unaccountable group of Ministers into a law-making machine is also a violation of the separation of powers.

It was for these reasons that we asked South Africans to assist in funding our cases, even with small amounts, and the response was so overwhelming that it overloaded our online donations system. We have since increased capacity on our site to accommodate increased web traffic to our online donations portal for anyone who wishes to donate.

The DA is heartened by this positive response, which will go some way to funding our legal challenges as we continue to fight for a smart lockdown model that limits the spread of Covid while simultaneously protecting livelihoods, preventing hunger and getting South Africans back to work safely.

Issued by Helen Zille, DA Federal Council Chairperson, 16 May 2020