SCA dismisses Cape Town residents’ lockdown level 4 appeal

Cape Town residents challenging the legality and regulations of last year’s national lockdown alert level 4 had their case struck off the roll by the Supreme Court of Appeal on Thursday.

Duwayne Esau and seven others challenged President Cyril Ramaphosa, Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Minister of Trade and Industries and Competition Ebrahim Patel.

They argued that the regulations of the national lockdown had curtailed their freedom.

Among those freedoms, they challenged the limitation of exercise to three means, namely walking, running, and cycling between 9pm and 6am, and the prohibition of the sale of hot cooked food and the validity of a direction Patel in respect of what clothing could be sold under level.

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Judge Clive Plasket said that the level 4 regulations were made in a procedurally fair manner via a rational decision-making process.

“The COGTA Minister [Dlamini-Zuma] applied her mind to the representations that she received from members of the public; the specific movement and economic activity regulations that were challenged were, with two exceptions, reasonable and justifiable limitations of fundamental rights; and the challenge to the clothing directions made by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition was moot and did not, on this account, have to be decided,” said Plasket.

sca2021-09 by Molefe Seeletsa on Scribd

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