Responding to a Pretoria High Court judgement on Tuesday awarding limited legal costs to the organisation, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) said the court’s decision sends a ”very strong signal” that the government cannot ignore calls for access to information.
”It sends a very strong signal to the Department of Health, as well as other organs of state, to act in a constitutional manner, which basically means they can’t ignore requests for access to information,” said Fatima Hassan, a lawyer at the Aids Law Project, during a Cape Town briefing.
Earlier in the day, the Pretoria High Court awarded the Aids lobby group costs in its failed application for access to the department’s documents relating to the government’s comprehensive anti-retroviral roll-out plan.
Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, cited as the respondent in the matter, was ordered to pay the applicant’s costs on the scale as between attorney and client.
But acting Judge N Ranchod refused the TAC’s request for the costs to include those of two counsel.
”In my view, the application was not of such a nature as to have warranted the employment of two counsel,” he said.
The TAC last month withdrew a court bid for access to annexures it believed formed part of the department’s operational plan for HIV/Aids care, management and treatment.
It claimed the department had ignored 11 requests for access to the documents, which the TAC believed contained time schedules for the operational plan.
Only after the TAC brought its court action did the department reveal in September that references to the annexures on the department’s website had been an error. It said the annexures were draft plans not yet approved by Cabinet.
The TAC then withdrew its application, but sought a punitive costs order against the minister.
Crux of the matter
Ranchod said on Tuesday the department’s failure to remove all references in the operational plan to the non-existent annexures was the crux of the matter before him.
The minister or her department ought to have been aware of the oversight at least by February this year.
”Had the applicant been informed of this earlier, the application would not have been lodged,” Ranchod said.
According to Hassan, the government should in future communicate with civil society when receiving similar requests for information in the future.
She said Tuesday’s judgement also means that the government cannot ”string along” a party for several months and not tell anybody about the true state of affairs.
”The court found that it was the minister [Tshabalala-Msimang] who wasted the taxpayers’ money, and not the TAC … The minister came to court to defend an indefensible case,” said Hassan.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance also welcomed Tuesday’s judgement, saying Tshabalala-Msimang’s ”irresponsible” behaviour was completely unbefitting of one who holds such a crucial position.
”We despair that so much time and money has been devoted to such a pointless exercise. The resources devoted to this court case could have far better been devoted to ensuring the more rapid roll-out of the anti-retroviral programme,” said the party’s Aids deputy spokesperson Juanita Terblanche in a statement. — Sapa