HSF in court to challenge Covid-19 laws
The Helen Suzman Foundation will ask the High Court in Pretoria on Thursday to force government to pass “special” legislation to manage Covid-19 and reclaim the powers of Parliament and the executive.
The foundation says it believes the Disaster Management Act vested too much power in Cooperative Governance Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for too long.
HSF’s Anton van Dalsen says the foundation will be seeking an order directing both Parliament and the executive to take immediate steps in reclaiming and restoring their respective powers.
"Since the national state of disaster was declared by President Cyril Ramaphosa in March, the Disaster Management Act bestowed wide ranging legislative and executive power on the Cogta Minister to deal with issues arising from Covid-19 challenges.
“Whilst centralising power in the minister may have been justified by the sudden threat presented by Covid-19, this basic departure from the Constitution's separation of powers can only endure for a limited period, namely, until Parliament and theexecutive can gather themselves and exercise their legislative and executive functions in relation to threats posed by Covid-19.”
Van Dalsen believes restoring power back to the executive and Parliament will increase transparency.
“What I think is very important here is that parliamentary involvement in this nature increases the level of transparency and you would have seen in the last past months that if people feel that things are not transparent they get suspicious and they wonder what is going on and that is a very important aspect.”