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Bheki Cele, Minister of Police, and JP Smith, on Camps Bay beach on Wednesday. (Jaco Marais, Netwerk24)
- The district attorney approached the Western Cape Superior Court to challenge the government closure of the Garden Route beaches and restrictions on Western Cape beaches.
- The party will request the court to declare the regulations unconstitutional, illegal and invalid.
- This after President Cyril Ramaphosa and Cogta Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma did not provide the prosecutor with the reasons for the restrictions.
On Thursday, the district attorney filed court documents in Western Cape Superior Court challenging the national government’s decision to close the beaches in the Garden Route district for the entire holiday season.
Previously, the party gave President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, a deadline until 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday to explain the reasons for the closure of the Garden Route beaches from December 16 to January 3.
At the request of Ramaphosa, he extended the deadline until 10:00 on Thursday.
“Both the president and Minister Dlamini-Zuma have not responded in the extended hour,” DA leader John Steenhuisen said in a statement.
“The fact that the national government has requested additional time to prepare a response to our letter requesting the reasons for the decision to close the beaches of the Garden Route, only shows that there were none to begin with. It would seem that the reasons given now they would be ex post facto manufactured “.
Steenhuisen said that the Prosecutor’s Office and the party’s coastal municipalities had “fought vehemently” against beach closures, as such regulation was not in line with scientific evidence from medical experts and was impossible to enforce.
“This regulation is also proving to be the last nail in the coffin for the coastal economies of the Garden Route, which are approaching total collapse,” Steenhuisen said.
In its judicial request, the Prosecutor’s Office asked the Western Cape Superior Court to declare unconstitutional, illegal and invalid the regulation that closes the beaches of the Garden Route and limits the time that the public can access the beaches of the rest of the Western Cape.
“The district attorney emphasizes that he supports rational, reasonable and legal measures to reduce the risk of transmission of the Covid-19 virus,” the Steenhuisen affidavit reads.
“The affidavit is not presented to undermine the government’s response to the pandemic, but rather to affirm the rule of law in times of emergency and crisis and to ensure that the measures taken are legal and rational.”
Steenhuisen provided six reasons why the district attorney believed the regulations were unconstitutional, illegal, and invalid.
The District Attorney’s Motives for Opposing Garden Route Beach Closure and Western Cape Beach Restrictions
- The general closure violates the right to freedom of movement and violates the right of people in the tourism industry to choose and practice their occupation and trade.
- General closure and time restrictions are not necessary in terms of the purposes of the Disaster Management Act, which allows the minister to make regulations. These are: helping and protecting the public, providing relief to the public, protecting property, preventing disruptions, dealing with the destructive and other effects of the disaster.
- The decision to close the Garden Route beaches appears to have been made without giving affected stakeholders adequate notice or an opportunity to comment.
- The blanket shutdown is an irrational and arbitrary measure to address the spread of the virus. “Visiting a beach presents a lower risk of transmission than other activities, especially those that take place in the interior that are still allowed by regulation,” Steenhuisen said.
- Restrictions on beaches in the Western Cape will cause more people to visit other spaces at the same time, which is counterproductive and irrational.
- The blanket closure and restrictions interfere with the executive authority of local governments and the right to manage the beaches.
In his statement, Steenhuisen said that companies in the Garden Route hotel industry were already reporting “devastating and life-threatening losses worth hundreds of millions of rands.”
“This is precisely the reason why we are urgently approaching the courts to expedite the reversal of this decision, as the livelihoods of thousands of people are currently at stake,” he said.
“In the South African context, poverty can be far more deadly than the coronavirus, and in this case, the national government is unnecessarily risking the livelihoods of thousands of South Africans. We cannot and will not allow this to happen.”
Steenhuisen expected the district attorney’s case to be heard on Monday.
Meanwhile, DA MP and police spokesman Andrew Whitfield said he would file a complaint with Parliament’s Ethics Committee against Police Minister Bheki Cele “after he appeared to give illegal operating instructions” to the police to shut down a film on the beach at Camps Bay on Wednesday.
Ramaphosa spokesman Tyrone Seale knew that the district attorney produced court documents. “We will deal with this through the legal process,” he said.
