The Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) has asked the Supreme Court of Appeal for urgent leave to appeal the High Court’s dismissal of its challenge to South Africa’s 100-day-old ban on cigarette sales.
FITA in its application said the North Gauteng High Court erred in interpretation of the threshold for concept of necessity in the Disaster Management Act in terms of which the government declared a state of disaster in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It should, FITA said in its papers, have found that the test was whether something was “absolutely necessary”.
Regarding the rationale behind the ban, government said it banned entjies, based on research, to prevent hospitals being overrun with smokers who presented with severe Covid-19 symptoms.