Government to oppose Solidarity’s application to lift state of disaster

7 March 2022

On 1 March, the government announced that it would oppose Solidarity’s application to lift the state of disaster. The case is set to be heard in the Supreme Court on 20 April.

According to Solidarity, this notice confirms the necessity of continuing with the case despite promises of easing some of the lockdown measures. 

“On the one hand, President Ramaphosa claims in public that the government wants to lift the state of disaster, but on the other hand, they are fighting any attempt to lift the state of disaster in court. This creates the impression that promises about ending the state of disaster are just as empty as those of smart cities or the fight against corruption. Without external pressure, such promises will never realise,” said Dr Dirk Hermann, CEO of Solidarity. “The government wants to keep the state of disaster in place due to their own inability to get regulations in place. They have known for two years that this situation will come to an end. A state of disaster cannot remain in place because the government’s house is not in order. We can no longer have regulations in place that allow us to be governed by a command council. We must return to a normal democracy.”

Solidarity argues that there is no reason for the state of disaster to remain in force, that the conditions for the state of disaster have expired and therefore the state of disaster must also be ended.

“The state of disaster gives the government abnormal power for abnormal circumstances. A government may not have these powers for one day longer than necessary. We must remember that the powers government has now are the same powers according to which it was decided what shoes may be worn and to which it was ordered that hot food should not be sold. It is also during this abnormal state of power that billions of rands of Covid-19 money were looted,” Hermann explained.

According to Solidarity, the intention of the Disaster Management Act is to act reactively rather than proactively and therefore the government can no longer prolong the situation for the sake of possible new waves of the virus.

“The legislation in no way provides for the management of a future pandemic with an existing state of disaster. We have now experienced two consecutive days of no deaths due to the virus and must start treating Covid-19 as endemic right away,” said Hermann.

Earlier this year, Solidarity and AfriForum respectively submitted court documents in which these organisations requested the courts to declare the continuation of the current state of disaster invalid.

Solidarity argues in its court documents that the continuous extension of the state of disaster is irrational and extremely harmful to the economy as well as social and political norms in South Africa.

“We are exposed to the abuse of power from a command council without it being held accountable in any way for the implementation of regulations and restrictions that it imposes on people. People are impoverished because they cannot work properly, and children do not have sufficient opportunity to learn. “This council’s reign of terror must end now,” Hermann concluded.

Issued by Connie Mulder, Head: Solidarity Research Institute (SRI), 7 March 2022