CAPE TOWN - The recently-formed Universities Alliance South Africa (Uasa) says it will soon file papers at the Constitutional Court against nine higher learning institutions over their mandatory vaccine policies.
The organisation, whose aim is to represent the interests of university students and staff who are against the vaccine mandates, is preparing to take action over what they say is “irrational, medically unjustified, and unlawful Covid-19 vaccination policy”.
This follows after staff, students and visitors in several universities were required to be vaccinated in order to access lecture rooms, university residences and events.
The ten institutions which include Stellenbosch University (SU) and UWC were given until Tuesday to abandon their mandatory vaccine policies or face legal action.
However the organisations attorney, Stephen May, said unfortunately they did not get the types of responses they were hoping for.
“The vaccine mandate policies are irrational and cannot be sustained by a proper consideration of the evidence. If the universities are not willing to engage with us in a cooperative and consensus building way, then we will have to go to court,” said May.
SU said they did receive a document from Uasa, however given that they do not have a vaccination policy or rule in place, it was not necessary for them to respond.
This while UWC said they had corresponded directly with attorneys of the organisation.
“The University of the Western Cape (UWC) has corresponded directly with the attorneys of the organisation. The organisation has no members at UWC or jurisdiction over UWC Policies,” UWC spokesperson Gasant Abarder said.
According to Uasa it had engaged in a consultative process with several universities for the purposes of addressing concerns pertaining to mandates and during these processes; “critical legal, procedural, and scientific shortcomings were identified in all of the universities’ mandates”.
The organisation added their stance against mandatory vaccines had nothing to do with an “unscientific outright rejection” of vaccines. However they have a “grave reservation about the present mandates which rob those persons affected by them of, inter alia, their right to choose, which itself is an affront to their dignity”.
Cape Times