Smoking battle hots up
COURT: FITA APPLIES FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL DISMISSAL OF BAN CHALLENGE
Legal expert says it is not for court to decide whether smoking policy is good or bad.
Government will have to prove that should one stop smoking for several weeks, they are less likely to die of Covid-19 than those who did not, otherwise the decision to continue banning the sale of tobacco products will be a mistake.
The tobacco battle will continue tomorrow as the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association’s (Fita) application for leave to appeal the dismissal of its challenge on the ban will be heard in the High Court in Pretoria.
This after a full bench of the high court last month dismissed the challenge brought by the association against the ban with costs.
The court found that the ban, which was one of the measures imposed to combat and contain the spread of Covid-19, was legally rational.
This means there should be a rational link between what is being done and the purpose of doing it, said constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos.
“In terms of Covid-19, the purpose of the regulations is to suppress the spread of the virus and limit the number of people who will die of the virus,” said De Vos.
The question to be asked was: would a rational person find a link between banning cigarettes and reducing the spread of the virus and the number of people who would die of the virus?.
In its application papers, Fita argued that the court erred in applying the rationality test that imposing the ban on tobacco products was rationally linked to the purpose of the gazetted regulations in terms of section 27 of the Disaster Management Act.
According to the South African Drug Policy Initiative (SADPI), the court’s basis of legal rationality is a “narrowly defined minimum threshold” for government’s decision-making. SADPI, a nongovernmental organisation that advocates for drug-related policies, provided an expert witness to support evidence brought forward by Fita. But its expert advice was not considered by the court, despite the scientific evidence contrasting legal rationality, said SADPI’s Keith Scott.
“Before implementing any public health policies, the authorities are obliged to consider both the potential benefits versus the countervailing risks and costs of those policies. Fita’s medical experts pointed out that neither of these assessments was carried out and provided evidence to show how the harms and costs of the banning far outweighed any
That smoking is unhealthy is a bad argument