The Constitutional Court is weighing a challenge to the Northern Cape Gambling and Liquor Act of 2024, a case that will determine how far provincial governments can go in setting the commercial terms under which alcohol businesses operate. The challenge was brought by the DG Murray Trust (DGMT), and it targets provisions that significantly widened the trading window for establishments selling alcohol in the province.
The commercial stakes are substantial. Under the legislation, taverns, restaurants and other venues selling alcohol for consumption on their premises may trade until 2 am, seven days a week. Nightclubs can sell alcohol until 6 am from Monday to Saturday, and bottle stores are permitted to open on Sundays. For operators, those hours represent expanded revenue opportunities and a more permissive market environment than most provinces allow. The DGMT contends that the same extended hours raise the risk of alcohol-related harm, including violence, road injuries and added pressure on healthcare services, with particular concern for children and communities already carrying high levels of alcohol-related harm.
The case arrives at the apex court after an April ruling by the Northern Cape High Court, which found that the provincial legislature had failed to facilitate meaningful public participation before passing the law. The high court also identified defects in specific provisions, including the trading hours themselves and a clause dealing with the sale of traditional sorghum beer. But it rejected a separate argument from the DGMT: that the state carries a constitutional duty to take reasonable and effective steps to shield people from alcohol-related harm. Whether that duty exists is now one of the central questions before the Constitutional Court.
The trust frames its argument in rights-based terms, contending that government is obliged to protect constitutional rights, among them dignity, freedom and security of the person, access to healthcare, and an environment that is not harmful to health or well-being. It argues further that children must be protected from alcohol-related harm, including the consequences of other people’s drinking. Central to its submission is the claim that decisions about liquor trading hours cannot be treated as purely economic or administrative matters, because they carry broader consequences for public health and safety.
The economic weight of those consequences is set out in modelling research cited in the case, which estimated that about 62 300 deaths in South Africa in 2015 were attributable to alcohol, roughly one in every 10 deaths recorded that year. Expert evidence presented by Professor Charles Parry of the South African Medical Research Council and economist Samantha Filby of the University of Cape Town links extended alcohol availability to increased risks of heavy drinking, violence and injuries, evidence that speaks directly to the cost side of the trading-hours equation.
The judgment’s reach is likely to extend well beyond the Northern Cape. If the Constitutional Court upholds the DGMT’s constitutional rights argument, its ruling could set out what provincial governments must weigh when they legislate on liquor laws and trading hours, effectively shaping the regulatory environment in which operators across the country’s alcohol market do business. Provinces would gain clearer guidance on how far economic liberalisation of trading hours can go before it collides with constitutional obligations.
The relief sought is calibrated rather than sweeping. The DGMT is asking the court to declare the challenged provisions unconstitutional while giving the Northern Cape Provincial Legislature 24 months to correct the defects in the legislation. During that window, the organisation proposes that venues selling alcohol for consumption on their premises close at midnight, and that bottle stores be barred from selling alcohol on Sundays. For licensees in the province, the proposal would claw back much of the extended trading time the 2024 Act introduced, trimming late-night revenue at taverns, restaurants and nightclubs and ending Sunday trade for bottle stores. For provincial lawmakers, the case will test whether liquor regulation can be framed as market policy alone, or whether the health and safety costs of extended availability must now sit at the centre of the calculation.