Cape Town restaurateurs embroiled in a legal fight to lift the ban on alcohol are angry that the government has succeeded in delaying their case in the Western Cape High Court.

The lawsuit – brought by 10 restaurateurs against Co-operative Governance & Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and the Ministers of Tourism and Health – was set down to begin yesterday, but was postponed for two weeks.

Liam Tomlin, one of the litigants, is quoted by TimesLIVE as saying: ‘It is with a strong mixture of disappointment and anger that we unfortunately have to report that the government and its (nine) advocates have used legal technical delay tactics to force a postponement… The matter will now be heard on 25 and 26 August. The predominant reason for the postponement is government is fighting with all its might.’

Tomlin said apart from challenging the countrywide ban, the restaurateurs are also ‘pursuing an order with more limited effect to declare it as such only in the Western Cape’ should be court be unwilling to grant an order for the entire country.

‘This must have frightened the hell out of them,’ he said.

‘They immediately clambered for the postponement to take this up with Dr Dlamini-Zuma. This notwithstanding the fact that the Minister has already considered that option and came out strongly in her affidavit before court, stating brazenly that it against government policy to lift the ban in any province without also lifting it throughout SA, which is absolutely astonishing and unconstitutional.’

Tomlin said the litigants have spelt it out in their court papers that the province is past its Covid-19 peak, but 'even at the peak of the virus, public hospitals and medical services were under pressure but never overwhelmed and, even then, never reached capacity in the province'.

Full TimesLIVE report