The Northern Cape High Court has reserved judgment in a case about the constitutional responsibility of provinces to protect public health and safety by reducing liquor trading hours.
The DG Murray Trust (DGMT) has asked the court to declare provisions of the Northern Cape Gambling and Liquor Act of 2024 invalid and wants a fair and participatory public consultation process on any new provisions going forward.
The law was passed without proper public consultation, despite clear evidence that longer trading hours increase alcohol-related harm, including violence, road deaths and gender-based violence.
DGMT hopes this case will affirm that provinces have a constitutional duty to legislate in the public interest, not in ways that deepen South Africa’s alcohol-related crisis.
On 16 October 2025, senior counsel for DGMT argued that the Northern Cape Provincial Government failed in its constitutional obligation to protect residents’ rights to health, safety and dignity by extending liquor trading hours across the province, a decision likely to increase community harm.
Advocate Andrew Breitenbach for DGMT, set out in detail the link between extended trading hours and greater alcohol-related harm. He highlighted the public health crisis of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) in the province, noting that one study found between 12% and 28% of children at Northern Cape study sites are living with the condition. These harms, he argued, fall most heavily on vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.
Advocate Breitenbach also told the court that the public participation process was “constitutionally defective” because the public was invited to comment on a Bill that proposed shorter trading hours, while the final law allowed for longer hours. These major changes were made without alerting the public or providing a fair opportunity to respond.
Counsel for the provincial government conceded in court that the link between longer trading hours and alcohol harm is “obvious”. He also acknowledged that DGMT’s challenge to the public participation process was a “difficult one” for the legislature to defend, and admitted if the court finds that the legislature had failed to comply with Section 118 of the Constitution, such a failure would render the law invalid.
Despite these concessions, the provincial government’s counsel dismissed DGMT’s case as “nit-picking” and “paternalistic”, an approach DGMT says shows disregard for the human cost of alcohol harm.
“This case is about people, not profit,” says Zimasa Mpemnyama, Project Lead for Rethink Your Drink, DGMT’s alcohol harms reduction campaign. “The provincial legislature must be held accountable for passing laws that ignore evidence and silence community voices. This case has profound consequences for the people of the Northern Cape, especially its women and children.”
“Far from being a peripheral issue, the World Health Organisation has shown that reducing the availability of alcohol is one of the five most cost-effective ways of reducing alcohol harm,” Mpemnyama adds.
This case builds on DGMT’s broader effort to reduce alcohol harm by ensuring liquor regulation and laws uphold people’s constitutional rights. In 2024, the Western Cape High Court declared unconstitutional and invalid a Kannaland bylaw that extended trading hours seven days a week after DGMT challenged its legality.
For more details on DGMT’s arguments made during the hearing, see our Heads of Argument.
