In May 2020, Pretoria resident Reyno de Beer and his organisation, Liberty Fighters Network, turned to the court to challenge the lockdown regulations, especially under level 4 and 5. After the court's finding in favour of De Beer, the Minister of Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, appealed against the Pretoria High Court judgment made in June 2020. The argument was that De Beer's court challenge had not properly pleaded the constitutional attack and was too vague.

According to Pretoria News, the government said it was in the public interest for the Supreme Court of Appeal to urgently hear their appeal. Dlamini-Zuma said the regulations drastically affected the lives of South Africans on a daily basis. If the regulations were in breach of the Constitution, that needed to be determined as a matter of urgency. If they were, on the other hand, compliant with the Bill of Rights and binding, that too must be urgently determined.

A bench of five judges at the SCA says, previously when handing down the judgment against Dlamini-Zuma, the Pretoria High Court strayed beyond this pleading and that the High Court’s application of the rationality test was fundamentally flawed and the orders were vague.

“The declaration of invalidity is suspended until such time as the Minister, after consultation with the relevant cabinet minister/s, review, amend and republish the regulations mentioned above with due consideration to the limitation each regulation has on the rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights contained in the Constitution,” the SCA adds.

OFM News