Presidency sought to silence us - Erin-Dianne Richards
One of the advocates who threatened to challenge the constitutionality of the coronavirus command council has accused the Presidency of seeking to silence their valid grievances.
Erin-Dianne Richards was speaking in a virtual discussion hosted by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) on Wednesday.
Richards and Advocate Nazeer Cassim threatened to head to court following what they believed to have been an unsatisfactory response by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
"I was shocked by the Presidency's response, basically it was tongue-in-cheek, it was sarcastic, it provided no answers and called us unprofessional and it was an attempt to try and invoke the profession into discipline us or disbarring us," said Richards.
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"It was a complete attempt to shut us up either by embarrassing us or whatever the plan was, thankfully our profession came out in full support of us.”
She believes South Africans have given up their agency to politicians and that the command council is another way in which the state is abusing its power.
The two have since withdrawn their legal action, with Richards saying they decided to leave any possible court action to civil society organisations.