ActionSA is seeking leave to join legal action as a friend of the court in a case instituted by DearSA and AfriForum against the Minister of Health over the extension of Covid-19 regulations, despite the end of the National State of Disaster.

ActionSA’s legal application will be argued by the party’s Head of Strategic Litigation and Senate member Advocate Gill Benson.

Health Minister Joe Phaahla gazetted an extension to the period for public comment on the Covid-19 health regulations while simultaneously publishing Regulations to the Surveillance and the Control of Notifiable Medical Conditions: Amendment 2022 in the Government Gazette.  

ActionSA is concerned that the regulations give the Minister powers to create and amend legislation on impulse, with no accountability mechanisms, with the party citing the potential for abuse of such sweeping powers.

ActionSA has said the gazetted regulations are preposterous, unconstitutional, unlawful and procedurally irrational.

“South Africans have emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic severely impacted by the irrational and power-hungry actions of our government that restricted our constitutional freedoms in a manner consistent with our government’s lack of respect for the Constitution. While the world is opening up and returning back to normal it is outrageous that our government is introducing wide-ranging powers to have a Minister unilaterally create legislation to limit our freedoms,” ActionSA said.