Pretoria – The North Gauteng High Court is on Wednesday expected to hear the government’s appeal of a court judgment that ruled the national lockdown regulations were unconstitutional.
The Liberty Fighters Network (LFN) announced on Saturday that Cogta Minister Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma’s bid to overturn the judgment delivered earlier this month is set down for June 24.
Liberty Fighters Network’s Reyno de Beer said they were ready to face the minister in the second round and have opted to keep it straight and simple.
According to De Beer, LFN’s main goal will be to make the government realise that the people are governing and that it is at the mercy of the people to manage and must administer the country in line with the Constitution and to benefit all who live in it and not only benefiting a handful.
The High Court ruled in LFN’s favour earlier this month when it heard the groups urgent application. The judgment was welcomed by some but crticised for being poorly compiled.
The government was given 14 days to make amendments to the regulations.
A week after the judgment was issued, Minister in the Presidency Jackson Mthembu confirmed that the Cabinet had decided to appeal the ruling.
Mthembu said the government had consulted legal experts on the matter and believed that a different court would come to a different decision. Mthembu said the judgment would be appealed at the same court but he did not rule out the possibility of approaching the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court.
The government’s appeal application will be heard on an urgent basis and will be appealed by Cogta Minister Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma and President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mthembu stressed that while the appeal was underway level 3 regulations should be observed. He said people should wear masks, wash their hands, screening, and testing for the coronavirus.
“We are very confident that what we did, the articulation of levels, was crafted to save lives,” Mthembu said.
