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E L L I V O E Y E H T N O ANALYSIS S T I M R E P N E E B E H S JUDGEMENT ON t and the way ome of the judgemen tc ou e th at ok lo th -dep
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he outcome of the long-awaited judgement on the status of shebeens in Gauteng was delivered in the South Gauteng High Court on 1 November 2017, eight months after the matter was heard by the court. The court session was very short. Justice Motojane delivered the judgement by reading an order as follows: a. The decision of the MEC to promulgate the provisions of the Gauteng Liquor Regulations and 12
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shebeen licences published under government notice 586 in Provincial Gazette 56, dated 1 March 2013, is reviewed and set aside. b. The provisions of the regulations are declared ultra vires and therefore invalid. c. The declaration of invalidity shall not have a retrospective effect. d. The declaration of invalidity is suspended for two years to allow the defects to be remedied. The big question to a liquor trader or
a shebeen permit holder is: How is the status or validity of the shebeen permit affected by the judgement, if it is indeed affected? The answer to the question is yes, the court had in effect declared the entire permit regime to have been invalid. In the words of the court: “It is so that the liquor trading by shebeen owners would be unlawful from the moment the order is granted and because of the illegality anyone running a shebeen will be prosecuted.”
