Liberty Fighters to battle on against state’s ‘weird’ appeal of anti-lockdown judgment
The group said in a statement that it was confident the majority of South Africans stood with them in the contention that the state's lockdown regulations were not legal.
Reyno De Beer of the Liberty Fighters Network, 3 June 2020, Derdepoort, Pretoria. Picture: Jacques Nelles
In a statement late on Thursday evening, the group that took government to court and this week won a high court ruling declaring most of the level 5 and 4 lockdown regulations unconstitutional and invalid responded to cabinet’s announcement that it intends to appeal the ruling.
The Liberty Fighters Network (LFN) said it had noted the news “with extreme dissatisfaction”.
They said LFN had not received any formal notice from government of their intentions, but they would still formulate a suitable response once the request for leave to appeal at the High Court in Pretoria had been scrutinised.
LFN president Reyno De Beer said they were ready to oppose any appeal attempt by government and would accept any such challenge “as representatives for the people of our country”.
De Beer said they had been “astounded by all the thanksgiving messages” they had received since the judgment, “not only from the people of South Africa but also from across Africa and the United States of America”.
He said they had accepted their now “unofficial role as the delegate for the people of our country during the time when all the political parties in parliament pledged their lockdown support to our clearly disorientated government”.
“If a referendum could be called today, LFN believes that the vast majority of the South African electorate would be voting in favour of a government submitting itself to a judgment which, we feel, to have been a very fair and just assessment of the South African reality under lockdown.
“Instead of bringing its regulations in line with our constitution and end the ongoing abuses of human rights, government appears to have chosen a path of a rather weird resistance.
“If this, our government, was indeed a government by the people and for the people, you would not be reading this. Thank you all for your support.”
Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu on Thursday explained that government was confident about the prospects of its appeal of the high court ruling.
He was briefing the media on the outcomes of a special cabinet meeting convened to deal with the judgment. Mthembu said cabinet was highly concerned about it, hence the decision to take the matter on appeal.
He said cabinet believed that government had been transparent on the regulations and what informed the decision to implement the lockdown and had not done anything justifying the adverse high court judgment.
Cabinet was “very confident” that all lockdown levels “were crafted to save lives”; “that’s what we were about”.
The minister said a number of public commentators and the World Health Organisation had applauded the South African government for the steps it had taken to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
These steps allowed for the slowing down of the infection rate and gave the country’s hospitals time to prepare and be ready for the “inevitable spike” of the pandemic, Mthembu said.
He said Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize and other experts had commented on the matter and said the steps taken by the government thus far had been “spot on”.
Mthembu said other commentators had said that had the government not taken these steps, Covid-19 infections and deaths could be “eight times” the current rate, adding that government’s decisions had “assisted us to save lives and that is what we are proud of”.
Mthembu said the appeal court papers were yet to be filed as cabinet had only resolved on the matter on Thursday.
He said that until the appeal was heard by the relevant court, the current lockdown regulations would remain in place and he urged South Africans to adhere to and comply with these accordingly.
The minister also announced that cabinet had taken the decision to extend the lockdown from 15 June for a month.
“If there is a need for us to extend again in July based on scientific evidence we will do so, as cabinet,” Mthembu said.
(Compiled by Charles Cilliers. Background reporting, Makhosandile Zulu)
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