Recently retired Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng criticised the SA government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and accused it of interfering with citizens' fundamental rights, reports Cape Times.
Mogoeng was addressing last Thursday’s (11 November) one-day virtual conference of the Forum of Institutions Supporting Democracy (FISD), which is chaired by Public Protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane. The FISD Office of the AG; Commission for Gender Equality; Human Rights Commission; Commission for the Promotion & Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious & Linguistic Communities; Financial & Fiscal Commission; Icasa; Electoral Commission of SA; Pan South African Language Board and the Public Service Commission all attended.
InMogoeng said the question was: “Has COVID-19 had a negative impact on good governance and ethical leadership? Has there been corruption, actual or perceived? If so what has the effect of these been on our constitutional democracy?”
Mogoeng said developments since the start of the pandemic in SA connote that COVID-19 and corruption have had a particular impact on the country's constitutional democracy. He asked: “Did COVID-19 and the developments around it trigger the need for collaboration among Chapter Nine and allied institutions to address apparent lapses on good governance and ethical leadership in our constitutional democracy?”
According to Mogoeng, Ramaphosa and Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma used a structure that is neither constitutional nor statutory, the national coronavirus command council, to effectively undermine people's rights by extending the national lockdown since last year.
“Why have we allowed a structure that is neither constitutional nor statutory, a command council, and a minister of Cogta and the president, to interfere with our entrenched rights in this manner, and to extend lockdowns as easily as they do and in circumstances where more accountability would have been experienced if the National Assembly were allowed to enjoy its constitutional rights?” he asked.
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