OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 6.30pm
THE Constitutional Court on Thursday ruled that the Liquor Bill, passed by Parliament in November 1998, is unconstitutional.
This comes after then president Nelson Mandela referred the Bill to the Concourt with questions over its constitutionality. Mandela said he had reservations about the constitutionality of the Bill as it intruded on the provincial legislatures’ exclusive powers on liquor licences.
The bill gave national government the mandate to issue licences to liquor wholesalers and manufacturers. The Constitution, however, states that the authority to issue liquor licences rests with provincial authorities. Delivering the unanimous decision on Thursday, Judge Edwin Cameron said the Bill is unconstitutional as the national government has not justified its intervention in retail liquor sales, nor in the case of small liquor manufacturers whose operations are essentially provincial.
But, it had justified its intervention in creating a national system of registration for manufacturers and wholesalers and in prohibiting cross-holdings between the three tiers in the liquor trade. This fell within the national legislature’s right to regulate trade.
“The court held that, in any event, national government had succeeded in showing that if the exclusive provincial competence regarding liquor licences extends to production and distribution its interest in maintaining economic unity authorises it to intervene in these areas under section 44(2),” Cameron said.
But Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin failed to show that national interest required uniform national legislation prescribing detailed mechanisms to provincial legislatures for setting up retail licencing mechanisms, he said.