What social compact is Ramaphosa talking about?

For a moment, it seemed that Big Bad Tobacco would do something socially useful. It would take on Big Bad Government in a landmark court case that would define to what degree the state can interfere in our lives.

Unfortunately, it then scuttled off. Or, as British American Tobacco SA put it, when it announced that it was abandoning its legal challenge to the lockdown ban on tobacco sales, it decided it would “rather pursue further negotiations with government on the formulation and application of the regulations”.

Of course, if a deal can be struck, it’s always better to do so. It’s potentially more profitable, both financially and strategically.

That appears to be the philosophy, also, of the liquor industry which, after some threatening noises about a similar challenge to the ban on alcohol sales, has similarly slunk off.

This lack of courage is unfortunate. It would be good to know where the judiciary stands when the state is being challenged on a number of critical issues that should make us uneasy.

Until now, the Covid-19 pandemic has been measured mostly in terms of its potential for being a public health tragedy and financial disaster. But in SA, it also has the potential for judicial tragedy and disaster.

Not since the days of apartheid have the courts had to deal with a state that is arguably riding roughshod over the constitution.

There’s the use of race criteria in the disbursement of disaster aid. There’s the promulgation of regulations that patently are irrelevant or even inimical to the aims that they are meant to achieve. There’s the deployment of the military and the lack of effective oversight of it and the police.

Finally, there’s a pandemic command structure that is not answerable to parliament. Nor, it seems, to the people.

Last week, advocates Nazeer Cassim and Erin-Dianne Richards wrote to Cyril Ramaphosa, concerned over the establishment, structure and functions of the National Coronavirus Command Council, as well as the noticeable lack of transparency about the body.

In his response, the president’s public persona of our benign Uncle Cyril slipped. Instead, the imperious Emperor took the throne. By asking these questions, said the Presidency, Cassim and Richards were “putting in jeopardy measures taken to save South African lives”.

Attorney Tracey Lomax this week criticised the lambasting of Cassim and Richards. Lomax’s seven-page letter to the president eloquently captures a growing national disenchantment. It merits quoting at length:

“Do not dismiss us. Do not condescend to us. Take us into your confidence. Not only are we entitled to it, we deserve it. We have earned it.

“Most of us have faithfully heeded your call for social distancing, your call to protect our fellow citizens. We have isolated ourselves from friends and family, we have sacrificed many of the things which give meaning to life…

“We have done so because we trusted you. That trust becomes fractured when our concerns are dismissed, when you go from family elder to condescending parent in tone and conduct.

“I urge you to reconsider the position adopted by your office and your government. We are not your children. We are your citizens.”

This should be self-evident to a president who is always waffling on about the importance of social compacts.

Unfortunately, when Ramaphosa speaks about a social compact, he is not talking about the one between the government and the governed. He’s talking about the one between the blocs that make up the ANC’s precarious tripartite alliance.

William Saunderson-Meyer.

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