Seychelles court orders medical drug rules after a mother’s access case

Ralph Volcere won an order requiring Seychelles ministers to write medical and scientific drug regulations within twenty-four months in May 2019. He had brought the case seeking cannabis access for his mother, who had Alzheimer’s disease. The court left ministers to decide the rules’ content and made the order apply to the future.

A son challenged the missing route to treatment

The 2016 drug law allowed controlled drugs to be manufactured, imported, exported and dealt with for medical or scientific purposes under regulations. Volcere argued that the government’s failure to write new rules prevented patients from using that route.

He asked the court to recognise breaches of his mother’s rights to life, dignity and health. He also wanted the eventual regulations to reach back to the start of the new law, giving protection to earlier medical dealings with cannabis.

The government argued that older regulations remained in force and that deciding drug policy belonged to ministers. Volcere’s lawyer, Frank Elizabeth, argued that the new law required action.

The court required rules, leaving their content to ministers

The majority found that the government had a statutory duty to issue regulations. Continuing to rely on rules made under the previous drug law did not fulfil that duty indefinitely.

It gave the responsible ministers twenty-four months. The judges recognised that reviewing controlled drugs and deciding how medical access should work required expertise, resources and policy decisions.

For patients, the next step therefore depended on the regulations ministers would write. The court required action while leaving them to determine which products and conditions the rules would cover.

The rights claim had a different outcome

The court accepted that Volcere could bring the case for his mother and referred to medical certification of her Alzheimer’s diagnosis. It nevertheless found that he had not established the claimed breach of her constitutional rights.

The order to write rules rested on the duty created by the drug law. It made the regulations apply only to future conduct.

CBD rules followed in 2020

A parallel case brought by Alexander Geers also produced an order to write regulations. In December, the appeal court lifted that separate order, ruling on the remedies available when no constitutional breach had been found.

The government subsequently issued CBD medicine regulations that took effect on 1 July 2020. They required specialist assessment and public-health approval, allowed prescribed CBD products through authorised pharmacies, and kept growing and smoking cannabis prohibited in Seychelles.^[1][2][3]