The Universities Alliance SA (Uasa), an activist organisation representing higher education students and staff, has threatened a a class-action lawsuit against tertiary institutions over their “irrational, medically unjustified, and in any event wholly outdated”, reports MedicalBrief.
Most of South Africa’s universities and colleges have implemented policies requiring students and visitors to be vaccinated in order to access lecture halls, accommodation and university events. Classes have been disrupted at several institutions by protests against the policy.
Uasa demanded that universities reconsider and abandon their vaccine mandate policies by the close of business on Tuesday this week (8 March). If this were not done, the alliance said it would engage in litigation.
Uasa is acting with the African Christian Democratic Party “in terms of section 38 of the Constitution … to defend the constitutional rights of affected people at universities through various means, including, if it cannot be avoided, through litigation”, according to a statement issued on Uasa’s behalf by Stephen G May Attorneys.
The attorneys said the stance adopted by both parties had nothing to do with an “unscientific outright rejection” of vaccines generally. However, they believe the mandates constitute forced experimentation, “requiring staff, students and other stakeholders to receive into their bodies experimental COVID-19 vaccines that are not historically tested and acceptable attenuated vaccine, and requiring individuals to present proof of vaccination by COVID-19 vaccine to access university campuses and to continue with studies and work, alternatively to be subjected to discriminatory constraints”.
Uasa said it was targeting universities in three categories: those that have already implemented mandates; those that have stated their intentions to introduce mandates; and those that now have no intention of implementing any such policy “but are nonetheless employing coercive measures to increase COVID-19 vaccine uptake”. The statement threatens a group application to the Constitutional Court rather than bringing action against each university.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
The contested terrain of mandating vaccinations at SA universities
Rhodes University’s mandatory jab policy challenged in court
University protests loom as students reject mandatory vaccines
26-member SA universities body backs mandatory vaccinations
US university's compulsory vaccination requirement for staff and students upheld