Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2002. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - Sunday 03 March 2002
Carmel Rickard
On Friday, the Inkatha Freedom Party's Lionel Mtshali dropped a bombshell in the Pretoria High Court - his legal team announced that the premier himself would deal with the contentious case on access to medication to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/Aids, instead of the provincial health MEC, Zweli Mkhize, a leading member of the ANC.
Mkhize had been named by the Treatment Action Campaign as one of the 10 respondents against whom they brought an application for pregnant women who are HIV- positive to have access to the drug nevirapine to prevent their babies being born with the virus.
But Mtshali decided to intervene in the case, sacking the state attorney acting for Mkhize and hiring his own lawyers to appear in the High Court and put his position.
Most of the morning was taken up with legal argument and manoeuvring during adjournments, testing the legality of Mtshali's step. But Judge Chris Botha ruled in Mtshali's favour.
Mtshali's court papers indicate the vast gap between ANC government policy and that of the Inkatha-led province . He says that given the pandemic engulfing the province, "the urgent and immediate administration of nevirapine is a moral imperative of government".
"A pandemic of the proportions that faces [this] province has no parallel in our history, and the response cannot be dictated by bureaucratic planners, but by the simple steps that can be immediately taken to ameliorate a situation of desperate urgency and crisis."
Marumo Moerane SC, acting for the state, said he wanted to appeal against Judge Botha's decision that Mtshali was entitled to replace Mkhize in the legal proceedings.
However, the case continued with argument by Gilbert Marcus SC on behalf of the campaign . Marcus argued that the doctors at government institutions should be permitted to prescribe the drug , pending the state's appeal against Judge Botha's original decision.
Judge Botha ruled in December that the state should provide nevirapine at government hospitals and clinics .
Judge Botha will give his ruling on March 11.
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