OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Monday
THE Pretoria High Court trial involving a challenge by pharmaceutical companies against government attempts to obtain cheaper medicines for South African citizens was adjourned shortly after it started on Monday morning due to repeated power failures.
Before the adjournment, counsel for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association, which launched the court action, objected to the Treatment Action Campaign joining the trial as a friend of the court in support of the government.
Advocate SA Cilliers, for the PMA, accused the TAC of “deliberate lateness”, saying this development could affect the proceedings. It did not appear as if the TAC had anything new to add to the points already raised by the government, he added.
The TAC, an organisation labouring for the provision of affordable quality medicine for HIV-Aids sufferers, last week announced its intention of joining the court case.
Thousands of protesters marched from Pretoria’s Church Square at around 11am on Monday to the city’s high court, where they picketed to show support for the government in its court battle. The group, filling the length of an entire street block, marched down Church and Bosman Streets on their way to the court in Vermeulen Street.
They were led by Pretoria’s Roman Catholic archbishop George Daniel and Bishop David Beetge of the Anglican Church.
The group was made up of members of the Congress of SA Trade Unions, the TAC, the SA Communist Party, the African National Congress and unions like Hospersa and Popcru.
A strong police contingent was on hand to keep an eye over the proceedings.
Placards being distributed on Church Square on Monday morning read: “To hell with patent rights when it comes to our lives”. Another, depicting a skull, said: “Lives before profit”.
A group of religious and church leaders also pledged their support for the campaign, with a Methodist Church leader telling the crowd: “Expensive medicines amount to discrimination. The government has a responsibility to make medicines affordable to all.”
The PMA’s court case is aimed at challenging the Medicines and Related Substances Control Amendment Act. It launched the case on behalf of 42 drug companies, amid a groundswell of protest from local and international organisations and political parties.
The association claims that the Act transgresses patent rights. The main bone of contention is Section 15(c) of the Act, which gives powers to the Health Minister to ensure access to cheaper medicines, and allows the parallel importation of generic drugs. The court case has incurred the wrath of Aids activists in TAC and Cosatu. Both have claimed that PMA’s challenge was a bid to protect drug companies’ massive profits.
They say more than 400_000 people have died of Aids-related illnesses since the PMA first launched its challenge in 1998. Most of them could not afford expensive drugs.
The PMA’s High Court challenge is scheduled to run until next Monday.
Earlier, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said she was confident the government would win its court case. “We have to win,” she said.
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