Apartheid Regime Attempted to Manipulate the Law Via Both Parliamentary and Senate Procedures
As South Africa’s original law was derived from the Statute of Westminster and with the later influence of Roman Dutch Law and the creation of Apartheid the Constitution of the 1950’s had to be amended to suit the aims and objectives of the ruling party in order to entrench their Apartheid laws and policies.
This essay will attempt to demonstrate via the two Harris and Collins how the Apartheid regime attempted to manipulate the law via both Parliamentary and Senate procedures in order top entrench white supremacy by disenfranchising people of colour.
Political assurance was translated into political action in 1936 when the Representation of Natives Act, which removed African voters from the electoral roll in the Cape Province and gave them separate representation, was passed by the unicameral procedure laid down in the entrenched provision. Before the cases mentioned above a similar case occurred in Ndlwana v Hofmeyr NO where the Act was challenged by an African voter on the ground that the unicameral procedure was, since the passing of the Statute of Westminster, no longer lawful. The case held that ‘Parliament can adopt any procedure it thinks fit; the procedure express or implied in the South African Act so far so far as Court of Law are concerned is at the mercy of Parliament like everything else’
In the first Harris case the government had purported to remove coloured voters in the Cape from the common roll, and put them on a separate roll. Having only a minority of support for this change, the legislature accomplished it by enacting a statute by a simple majority in each of the two houses of Parliament. The Constitution, however, required a special entrenched procedure for the enactment of such legislation. The entrenchment was achieved by sections 63 and the proviso to section 152 of the South Africa Act providing that the voting rights of Cape Coloured voters could only be removed by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament sitting
This essay will attempt to demonstrate via the two Harris and Collins how the Apartheid regime attempted to manipulate the law via both Parliamentary and Senate procedures in order top entrench white supremacy by disenfranchising people of colour.
Political assurance was translated into political action in 1936 when the Representation of Natives Act, which removed African voters from the electoral roll in the Cape Province and gave them separate representation, was passed by the unicameral procedure laid down in the entrenched provision. Before the cases mentioned above a similar case occurred in Ndlwana v Hofmeyr NO where the Act was challenged by an African voter on the ground that the unicameral procedure was, since the passing of the Statute of Westminster, no longer lawful. The case held that ‘Parliament can adopt any procedure it thinks fit; the procedure express or implied in the South African Act so far so far as Court of Law are concerned is at the mercy of Parliament like everything else’
In the first Harris case the government had purported to remove coloured voters in the Cape from the common roll, and put them on a separate roll. Having only a minority of support for this change, the legislature accomplished it by enacting a statute by a simple majority in each of the two houses of Parliament. The Constitution, however, required a special entrenched procedure for the enactment of such legislation. The entrenchment was achieved by sections 63 and the proviso to section 152 of the South Africa Act providing that the voting rights of Cape Coloured voters could only be removed by a two-thirds majority of both Houses of Parliament sitting