Liquor ban case postponed to August

Vinpro’s legal challenge of the way in which government managed the liquor bans during the COVID-19-related lockdowns has been postponed from the end of April until August.

Rico Basson, managing director of Vinpro, said the postponement of the court case was forced by the late filing of affidavits by government, in combination with its attempts to incorporate more than 1 000 pages of “irrelevant” material from the challenges brought by South African Breweries (SAB) against the ban. In addition, government was represented by three teams of advocates, and an earlier date could not be found that suited all the legal personnel.

From the outset, Vinpro had objected to the large contingency of advocates representing national government.

“It is ironic that national government is paying for so many lawyers when they say in the court papers they do not have sufficient resources to police more targeted lockdown measures, such as manning roadblocks and imposing bans in hotspot areas alone,” Basson said.

Vinpro’s legal team would use the additional time to finalise the replying affidavits and prepare for argument. An agreement had also been reached that the SAB material would be excluded from the case.

Basson said Vinpro would exercise its right to seek urgent interim relief from the Western Cape High Court should another ban be introduced before the next court date, asking it to afford the Premier of the Western Cape, Alan Winde, the power to adopt deviations to enable the off- and on-consumption sale of liquor in the province.

Similar relief would be sought in other provinces.