DA approaches ConCourt over Disaster Management Act

This follows last week’s decision to challenge the rationality of three separate lockdown-related issues at the High Court.

The party is demanding what it calls effective parliamentary oversight mechanisms to watch the state’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis.

Interim party leader John Steenhuisen says the current setup does not effectively involve Parliament in government’s decision-making around the pandemic.

“It appears the national command council is running the response and when asked who the national command council is accountable to, we are told it’s cabinet.

“It’s an absurd situation in a parliamentary democracy to have an executive that accounts to itself. The Constitution is very clear that all organs of state must be accountable to Parliament and as the people’s representatives we need to exercise oversight of the executive.”

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During the party’s regular Covid-19 dialogues, Steenhuisen said that they'd approached the Constitutional Court to have sections of the act declared unconstitutional.

“I think Parliament’s let the people of the country down by not insisting that it fulfills its constitutional mandate of exercising oversight of the executive.”

He added: “They’ve essentially allowed the national command council and the executive to make laws to make regulations that have far reaching and profound implications on all of us as citizens without a stitch of oversight.”

The DA wants the matter to be heard urgently.