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Section 37 of the constitution provides that a state of emergency can only last for 21 days unless extended by a majority in parliament for a first extension and any further extension by 60% vote of parliament after a debate. This state of disaster has been going for 10 months.
Fundamental rights have been curtailed, often arbitrarily and irrationally without debate or parliamentary approval. This is not what our constitution envisages. It’s not for the Minister to decide the right balance between people’s livelihoods and fighting the pandemic.
Tens of thousands of people have been turned into criminals, millions have lost their jobs and livelihoods and been plunged into deeper poverty, the state is not able or willing to compensate for this. Our elected representatives should be making these calls not the Minister.
It’s not a question of following the experts advice, they were not elected by us and they have no mandate to take away our democratic rights and freedoms. What we do is our choice and in a parliamentary democracy that choice is made for us by parliament.
Parliament should be extending the SOD and determining the extent to which our rights and freedoms should be curtailed to fight this epidemic. If parliamentarians decide that the restrictions are appropriate, that’s fine, we the voters can hold them accountable.
MP’s need to take their mandate from their constituencies, they are the people doing the dying and the people suffering the economic impact of this draconian lock down. Ultimately it should be their decision and their choice. That is the essence of democracy.
