South Africa’s National Health Insurance (NHI) Act is now the subject of one of the most significant waves of healthcare-related litigation since the advent of democracy.
What began as a series of legal challenges to both the substance of the NHI Act and the process leading to its enactment, has evolved into a complex matrix of review applications, constitutional challenges and public participation disputes.
At present, there are at least 11 separate legal challenges pending against the NHI Act. Yet despite the volume of litigation, the immediate future of the Act may turn on a far narrower procedural question – whether Parliament (being both the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces) meaningfully engaged the public during the legislative process.
That question is now before the Constitutional Court and the answer will determine whether or not the NHI Act becomes the subject of substantive constitutional battles to begin. ….more
