SA race quotas petition gets nearly 600,000 signatures
Trade union Solidarity says it will on Tuesday (8 September) lodge a complaint against the South African government with the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), in Geneva.
This will be the first time since 1994 that a complaint of racial discrimination by the South African government is brought before the United Nations, Solidarity said.
The complaint comes as a consequence of, among other things, Renate Barnard’s nine-year long battle against racial quotas in the South African Police Service (SAPS), a battle she eventually lost in the Constitutional Court.
The Solidarity complaint also focuses on government’s general use of racial quotas as measured against the national race demography, the union said.
“In total 572,582 members of the Solidarity Movement and other South Africans have signed a petition in support of Solidarity’s complaint. This is the largest petition against the South African government brought before an international body during the past 20 years,” said Solidarity CEO Dirk Hermann said.
Those who support the complaint come from across racial boundaries, Hermann said.
Solidarity is lodging its complaint in terms of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. South Africa is a signatory and member state of the Convention and as such must report every two years on the country’s compliance with the convention.
Solidarity argued that among other things, the convention stipulates that separate silos may not be created for various racial groups and that affirmative action may only be of a temporary nature.
Civil organisations may submit a shadow report in response to a government’s report, it said.
According to Hermann, Solidarity had gone to court on several occasions with litigation against the South African government; it had petitioned Parliament on two amendments to legislation; and has more than once requested a parliamentary debate, but to no avail.
“We are contending that the South African government is contravening international law in several areas and it is our democratic duty to bring this to the attention of the relevant forums. Compliance with international requirements is justly part of our democracy and it would be undemocratic not to see to it that South Africa keep to it,” he said.
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