Rhodes University will proceed with its COVID-19 mandatory vaccine requirement for all staff, students and visitors to its campus after an urgent Eastern Cape High Court (Makhanda) application to interdict its implementation was struck off the court roll.
A Daily Dispatch report says the application foundered on the first legal technical requirement of urgency. Judge Murray Lowe ruled that Makhanda Against Mandates (MAM) – the organisation that brought the urgent application – had known about the university’s approval of the vaccine mandate since October last year but had waited until January this year to resort to court in an “urgent” bid to interdict its implementation. He said the urgency was largely “self-created” and the timelines imposed on Rhodes to respond to a substantial, complex application running to almost 700 pages were stringent, unreasonable and unsustainable. He ordered MAM to pay the wasted costs of the application.
Daily Dispatch Pressreader article – Rhodes wins first battle against anti-vaxxers (Open access)
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