South Africa’s 30-day extension of the Covid-19 health regulations, which include the wearing of masks and social distancing measures, will expire at midnight on Wednesday, unless the government announces a further extension of the rules.
Afriforum said in a statement on Wednesday that in terms of the expiry of the regulations, no one would be required to wear masks or comply with any other Covid-19 regulations from Thursday, May 5 as no such regulations would exist and be enacted, if there was no further extension. The government initially extended the regulations for 30 days after the National State of Disaster came to an end in order to implement its proposed permanent new health regulations to govern Covid-19 and any other future health pandemics.
Afriform said that if the government went ahead with its plans to permanently enshrine the regulations in law, it would, together with the public participation platform DearSA, take legal action against the proposed regulations that had been issued in terms of the National Health Act 61 of 2003 and the International Health Regulations Act 28 of 1974.
“AfriForum’s court documents have already been finalised and our legal team are standing by to fight these amendments immediately should they come into force. AfriForum will litigate to review the astoundingly and unjustifiable regulations,” AfriForum campaigns manager Jacques Broodryk said.
The organisation believes that the draft regulations are ultra vires and therefore outside the intended scope of the legislation. The organisation said it was never the legislature’s intention for these Acts to have such far-reaching effects and consequences. Some of the proposed regulations, such as forced quarantine, had also previously been nullified by the court.
DearSA said it was also concerned about the governments’ handling of the public participation process regarding commentary on the newly proposed amendments to the Health Act.
“The number of comments submitted, as quoted by health officials, is far less than the number of comments DearSA received and submitted on behalf of public participants. More than 95% of the 283 000 comments we received rejected these regulations in their entirety. A detailed report of all these individual comments will be made available to the public shortly,” DearSA CEO Gideon Joubert said.
AfriForum also submitted more than 30 000 individual comments rejecting the regulations.
“There is no reason why these temporary health regulations should be made permanent. While many countries across the globe have dropped regulations such as the wearing of masks, the South African government now wants to permanently enshrine these measures in law. It’s absolutely illogical,” Broodryk said.
At the time of publication, Department of Health spokesperson Popo Maja had not responded to a request for comment on whether the government planned to make a further announcement to extend the regulations before midnight.
