How have our laws built our society?

There were many events last week to mark the day 60 years ago when about 20 000 women of all races converged at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. They went there to personally let JG Strijdom, prime minister of the apartheid-era National Party government, know that by wanting to strike the women he had struck a rock.

Sophia Williams-de Bruyn – with Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa and Helen Joseph – was one of the leaders of the march. Born in Port Elizabeth and an active trade unionist, she was just 18 at the time.

The march showed resilience and ingenuity in the fight against the pass laws which all aimed at controlling and monitoring the movement of Africans older than 16. People had to produce the dompas at any time when a state official ordered them to – or face arrest.

The pass laws were sharpened over the years by successive oppressive governments and reached their zenith of refinement in the incongruously named Natives Abolition of Passes and Co-ordination of Documents Act in 1952. This act, in an amendment in 1956, extended the pass laws to women.

The pass laws and other similar discriminatory and oppressive laws have gone now and in their place are more than 1 000 new laws aimed at supporting our democracy. Our democratic state, which came into being with our first non-racial democratic election in April 1994, is based in the values of human dignity; human rights; equality and freedoms; non-racialism and non-sexism and supremacy of the constitution and the rule of law.

It is all very well to pass laws and to have facilitated public participation on their making. But what effect have these laws had on our lives and our aim of building a new society?

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of the constitution and its Bill of Rights and the 22nd anniversary of our first non-racial and democratic election. It is a most appropriate moment to pause and assess the lawmaking of the past two decades which have aimed to reshape our apartheid-era and colonial society into the one envisaged in the constitution. The High Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and the Acceleration of Fundamental Change has been established to do just that.

The Speakers’ Forum, a structure of Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures, appointed the panel. It has been tasked with, among other things, assessing the implementation, of key laws since 1994, identifying gaps and proposing necessary interventions and recommendations.

The panel comprises a diverse range of people. As you can see from the list, they bring a wide range of experiences to the work before us.

However, important though these experiences are, for the panel to fulfil its task properly, it must consult widely – with academics and experts in particular fields, with members of Parliament and the Provincial Legislatures about their oversight work, and with a cross-section of South Africans about their experiences of our laws.

To get feedback from as many people as possible, we have called for written submissions – the deadline for those is Saturday – and will be holding public hearings in all provinces.

We want to hear from you what your experience has been of the laws passed during our democracy. Have they made life better and how? Have there been problems with how the laws have been applied and, if so, what are these problems? Are there gaps in the laws that should be filled?

Written submissions should be posted to PO Box 2164, Cape Town 8000 (attention Leanne Morrison) or e-mailed to [email protected]

We are about to start a series of public hearings in all nine provinces. The first of these is tomorrow and on Wednesday in East London. These hearings will be at Abbotsford Christian Centre, 28 Wyse Avenue, East London, from 9am and to 5pm.

Please check the media for details of hearings in the remaining eight provinces. These will become available closer to the time when they will be held.

The August 9, 1956, women’s anti-pass march vividly highlighted the specific contribution of women in our struggle for freedom. Since 1994, women have increasingly taken their place in top positions of the government and to a lesser extent the private sector of our country.

Gender equality has not yet been entrenched, however. So, continuing to strive to achieve this is the most meaningful tribute we can pay to the women of all races whose songs of protest made Strijdom flee his office that Thursday, 60 years ago, in August 1956.

The panel:

1. Kgalema Motlanthe, former president of the RSA (Panel Chair)

2. Mr Tito Mboweni, former Reserve Bank governor

3. Ms Bridgette Mabandla, former cabinet minister

4. Judge Navi Pillay, former UN Human Rights Commissioner

5. Prof Haroon Bhorat, Professor of Economics and director of the Development Policy Research Unit, University of Cape Town

6. Dr Olive Shisana, President and chief executive of Evidence Based Solutions

7. Rev Malcolm Damon, chief executive of Southern African Network on Inequality and founder member of the Economic Justice Network (EJN)

8. Prof Eddy Maloka, chief executive of the African Peer Review Mechanism

9. Dr Terence Nombembe, former Auditor-General

10. Mr Mthandeki Nhlapo, former SAMWU SG

11. Prof Vivienne Taylor, Social Policy & Development, UCT