Confronting Racial Discrimination: The South African Experience.

Centuries of colonialism and the later policy of apartheid institutionalised and normalised racial discrimination in South African society. The acceptance of constitutional democracy, a justiciable bill of rights and the rule of law in 1994 officially sounded the death knell for racial discrimination, but thirteen years after this legal revolution, the legacy of the racial past lingers on and still demands redress. The legal response to unfair discrimination is rooted in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 which entrenches equality as both a right and a value and which prohibits unfair discrimination. Parliament gave effect to the constitutional commitment to the creation of a non-racial and non-sexist society by passing the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000. The Act specifically provides for the creation of special courts - Equality Courts - to hear complaints regarding unfair discrimination on listed grounds (of which race is one) and also unlisted ones.This paper considers whether the statutory framework meets the constitutional requirements regarding equality and the eradication of racial discrimination and concludes that while on paper the benchmarks have been met, problems might occur in practice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]