PRESS RELEASE05 April 2022For immediate distributionGOVERNMENT ENDS STATE OF DISASTER – KEEPS EXTRAORDINARY POWERSThe Government terminated the National State of Disaster with effect from midnight last night, 4 April 2022. This marks two years and three weeks since Minister Dlamini-Zuma first declared the COVID-19 pandemic a national disaster on 15 March 2020. In her notice terminating the State of Disaster, the Minister said that transitional regulations (made under the Disaster Management Act, 2002), will remain in effect for 30 days after the State of Disaster ends. These regulations include the requirement for people to produce either a vaccination certificate or a negative COVID-19 test certificate (not older than 72 hours) in order to enter gatherings of over 1000 people indoors / 2000 people outdoors. (Gatherings below this number have no entry requirements.)Freedom of Religion South Africa (FOR SA) celebrates the termination of the State of Disaster but views the Minister’s continued regulation of society using the Act as ultra vires: “The Minister is expressly only granted authority to make regulations and/or directions if a state of disaster is declared. Once a state of disaster is no longer declared, the Minister is not empowered by the Disaster Management Actto make regulations”, says FOR SA’s legal advisor, Daniela Ellerbeck. “The Act expressly states that if no state of disaster is declared, then Government must deal with a national disaster only in terms of existing legislation and contingency arrangements, which laws and arrangements cannot be augmented by regulations or directions.”“The state of disaster has been ended precisely because COVID-19 is no longer seen as a severe threat to public health. The State can no longer show that it requires extraordinary powers to take exceptional measures to ‘save lives'”, says FOR SA’s Executive Director, Michael Swain. “There is, therefore, no justifiable legal, scientific or logical reason for these severe limitations on religious freedom rights to continue for one more day.” ENDSFor more information, contact:Michael SwainExecutive Director, FOR SAEmail: michael.swain@forsa.org.zaCell: 072 270 1217
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