Cape Town - The Centre for Constitutional Rights (CFCR) has welcomed the reported withdrawal of proposals on national and regional demographics from Employment Equity Act regulations.
“According to media reports, the department of labour withdrew its proposal for national and regional demographics to be used for employment purposes following recent Nedlac negotiations,” CFCR director Johan Kruger said in a statement on Tuesday.
The department of labour on Tuesday afternoon could not immediately confirm the proposals had been withdrawn.
No media official was available and its website was offline.
Kruger said in terms of the proposed regulations, “employers would have been required to consider only national demographics in respect of the promotion and appointment of certain categories of senior personnel”.
This would have had “far-reaching negative implications for coloured South Africans in the Western Cape, and for Indian South Africans in KwaZulu-Natal”.
Kruger said the Constitution recognised that equality in South Africa was yet to be achieved.
But, as indicated in the CFCR's submission on the draft regulations, the Constitution, in providing for the full and equal enjoyment of all rights, did not require numerical demographic representation.
Kruger said in pursuit of equality, restorative measures had to be balanced with all constitutional values and rights, including non-racialism. - Sapa