The Employers Organisation for Hairdressing, Cosmetology and Beauty (EOHCB) says it is filing an urgent court application to compel the government to reopen the personal care sector.
In a Facebook update, EOHCB said it had given the government until noon on Tuesday to respond to its letter on the matter, but did not get a response.
“This failure and disregard from [the] government has left EOHCB with no alternative but to mandate its attorney to draft an urgent application to reopen the personal care sector, which will be lodged with the high court, citing all relevant Ministers of the National Command Council,” it said.
Missed deadline
EOHCB expressed hope early last week, following an engagement with an unspecified Department, that the government would publish the sector’s guidelines by Friday (5 June).
It said the relevant Department was “in the process of drafting the necessary protocols and/or guidelines for the opening of business activities including hairdressing, beauty treatments, makeup, nail salons, piercing and tattoo parlours for the resuming of these business operations.”
However, in an update on Saturday, EOHCB said it to its “utter dismay, the Department’s self-invoked deadline was not kept.”
The organisation did not reveal the identity of the Department it has been in contact with, citing “sensitivity” concerns.
DA also heads to court
EOHCB’s announcement follows a similar decision by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to file an urgent application at the Western Cape high court.
In a statement on Monday, DA MP Dean Macpherson said Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, had “failed” to respond to the DA’s questions regarding the ban before a 3 June deadline.
He said, “The DA therefore has been left with no choice but to take this legal step to save the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people who have suffered at the hands of this government that does not care about them, and could not be bothered to provide any reasons for their hardship.”
He added that it was “unjustifiable” that most industries can now operate during alert level 3 subject to heath protocols except the personal care industry.
Macpherson further said the ban “violates section 22 of the Constitution which allows citizens the right to practice their trade, occupation or profession freely which may be regulated by law.”
“In our papers, we have argued that the blanket prohibition on the entire personal care industry is irrational and arbitrary which is prohibited from operating indefinitely, subject to the whims of some unidentified Minister that should provide ‘directions’ for the industry,” he stated.