Plaintiff ‘confident about argument’ in tobacco ban case

The chairperson of the Fair-trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA), Sinenhlanhla Mnguni, has expressed confidence in the arguments presented by the association’s legal team in a court case brought against government’s ongoing ban on the sale of tobacco products during the national lockdown period to contain the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.

Mnguni confirmed to Farmer’s Weekly that following the case, presented in the Pretoria High Court in early June, judgment had been reserved and the outcome would be emailed to the parties represented in the matter.

“The judges said that because this was an urgent matter that we had brought against government, they would expedite the judgment. But they did not indicate the exact date of when the judgment would be handed down.”

He added that although he was not willing to venture an opinion on the possible outcome of the case, which FITA brought jointly against President Cyril Ramaphosa and the Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, “we’re very confident in the legal arguments made by our legal team”.

When asked whether FITA had been engaged by government since the case was heard, Mnguni replied that “there was no interest by government to engage with the tobacco industry before the case, so why would we expect to hear anything from it now?” He said that if the Pretoria High Court ruled in favour of maintaining the ban, there was the strong possibility that South Africa’s tobacco value chain would not survive for much longer.

Ramaphosa, and Dlamini-Zuma in particular, had repeatedly stated that the ban on the sale of tobacco products implemented at the start of the lockdown period was intended to reduce both the spread of COVID-19 and the burden of smoking-related illnesses on the healthcare system.

Representatives of the Black Tobacco Farmers’ Association, which was initially strongly critical of government’s ban on the sale of tobacco products, declined to comment on the case. – Lloyd Phillips