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Earlier this week, Judge CJ van der Westhuizen in the Pretoria High Court did what the Democratic Alliance (DA) long should have done and what Hill-Lewis should have done the day after he became DA leader. In scathing terms, Van der Westhuizen found that Steenhuisen had “engineered delays” in having his foot-and-mouth-disease (FMD) policy tested in court, that in any free society “any private person may do anything that is not prohibited by law”, that “a policy or a practice to not permit privately administered vaccinations does not qualify as a law”, and that his department must henceforth “not interfere in relation to commercial relations of those who lawfully import FMD vaccines”.

How extraordinary that, just two years into the Government of National Unity (GNU), a a court would already have to lecture a DA Cabinet minister on what free people are allowed to do in a free society. And doubly disgraceful that the DA collective tolerated this situation as long as they did.

The court action was brought collectively by Free State Agriculture, Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI), and the excellent people at Sakeliga, all great and patriotic South Africans.

The FMD policy enforced by the state held, in essence, that farming businesses could not source approved vaccines or apply these to their herds but had to wait instead for the state to do the procuring and applying at a time and place and in a manner that suited the state. Given that farmers and their veterinarians routinely source medication and vaccines for a host of animal diseases the policy was doubly mad.

It is frightening to think that the ideas behind the policy contradicted literally every principle and policy on which the DA has historically campaigned: that the state is there to serve the people, that state power should be limited, that the private sector should be empowered to solve problems, and that decisions should be taken in the best interests of business owners, their employees, and the broader economy.

Along the way, South Africa’s farmers were belittled and insulted by the minister and then-DA leader, who acted with an arrogance in power that was truly startling for those who witnessed it firsthand. The low point came when farmers were accused of being terrorists who would use vaccines to make biological weapons.

How was this tolerated so long and, more than that, endorsed by the DA, which throughout put out the most shameful press releases on how many doses of this vaccine or that the state had imported and had, in its mercy, allocated to farmers?

The precedent should shake the very foundations of trust in that party and goes to show how power corrupts, regardless of who sits in office.

If, in what may be a forthcoming Cabinet reshuffle, Hill-Lewis insists that Steenhuisen be given the hoof, that would be a good start to repairing the damage. However, particularly following the comments of Judge van der Westhuizen, should Steenhuisen survive that reshuffle, very serious questions must be asked about the judgement of the DA’s new leader.