DA to fight Disaster Management Act despite Constitutional Court setback

On Wednesday, the apex court threw out the party's urgent application for direct access to the court to challenge the act, which empowers President Cyril Ramaphosa's government to declare a national state of disaster.

The state of disaster was used to impose a national lockdown in March, which is still in force, and create the national coronavirus command council — a powerful subcommittee of the cabinet which makes the lockdown rules. As the economic impact of the lockdown took hold, the DA questioned the legality of the act and the creation of the command council.What this now means — having been denied direct access to the country’s highest court — is that we will have to make our way more slowly through the court system in order to contest an issue with clear and urgent constitutional implications.He said it was the party's view that the Disaster Management Act did not pass constitutional muster.

Steenhuisen said the power given to Dlamini-Zuma meant she could give directives that included extending the state of disaster indefinitely.Not even a state of emergency places such unfettered and indefinite power in the hands of a minister or the executive.The president has asked South Africans to give up many of their rights for the fight against Covid-19, and they have.

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