Health & Science Correspondent
Advocacy group Judges Matter has called on health minister Aaron Motsoaledi to apologise for questioning the impartiality of the constitutional court judges presiding over challenges to the National Health Insurance (NHI) Act and retract his remarks.
In an address to nurses in the Eastern Cape to mark international nurses day on Tuesday, the minister said the judges were beneficiaries of the very system NHI sought to change. He attended last week’s Constitutional Court hearing into challenges to the NHI Act brought separately by the Board of Healthcare Funders (BHF) and the Western Cape provincial government.
“I was looking at those judges, looking at them in their eyes,” said Motsoaledi. ”There is a medical aid called Parmed, and now I’m asking judges who have got this benefit … please make a judgment over it. That’s the trouble I am having,” he said. he said.
It was highly unusual for a member of the executive to comment on a case that was still under consideration, said Judges Matter legal researcher Mbekezeli Benjamin.
