Opinion piece by Errol Naidoo
“Rescue SA Civil Rights Alliance” (RSACRA) will lodge its first case at the Cape Town High Court within the next two weeks – challenging the constitutionality of race-based laws in South Africa. Please pray for the team as we begin the task of holding all corrupt politicians accountable for crimes against the people of SA. We fight for the civil rights of all citizens.
RSACRA’s core legal arguments rests on a fundamental constitutional and legal defect in the current system of race-based legislation and regulation in South Africa.
(1) The framework operates without a lawful mechanism for determining race. The statutory regime that previously authorised the State to classify individuals by race — the Population Registration Act — has been repealed. No subsequent legislation provides a constitutionally certain definition of race or authorises the State to determine racial status.
Modern statutes depend on coerced self-identification, administrative assumption or historically derived classifications without statutory authority. A legal system that conditions rights, obligations and economic participation on a status the State has no lawful power to determine, violates the principle of legality, the rule of law and legal certainty.
(2) The disputed framework does not satisfy the constitutional requirements for remedial equality under section 9(2) of the Constitution. Remedial measures are constitutionally permissible only where they are rationally directed toward advancing those disadvantaged by past discrimination and where they demonstrably achieve substantive equality.
The present regime (The ANC led government) has operated for approximately three decades, yet the evidence shows that the primary economic gains have accrued to a narrow politically connected elite rather than the broader disadvantaged population.
(3) The continued existence of race-based differentiation cannot be justified by reference to the State’s own failures of governance. Evidence before commissions of inquiry and investigative bodies demonstrates that many empowerment opportunities were diverted through corruption, patronage networks and politically connected intermediaries.
Where remedial measures fail because of corruption or maladministration, the constitutional response required of the State is the prosecution of corruption and the recovery of public resources, not the indefinite continuation of race-based differentiation.
(4) International law imposes strict limits on remedial racial measures. Under Article 2(2) of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, special measures are permissible only where they secure the adequate advancement of disadvantaged groups and must not continue once their objectives have been achieved.
International law therefore requires that such measures be temporary in nature and subject to clear sunset criteria or termination once their purpose has been fulfilled. A regime that operates indefinitely, lacks objective benchmarks and contains no sunset mechanism cannot satisfy these requirements.
(5) When the statutory framework is viewed cumulatively, race functions as a systemic determinant of access to employment, procurement, licensing, and economic participation. At that point the framework ceases to operate as a remedial measure & risks becoming a system of structural racial ordering embedded within the ordinary functioning of the State.
Such a system is incompatible with the Constitution’s founding values of non-racialism, equality before the law and constitutional supremacy, and it conflicts with South Africa’s obligations under international human rights law.
RSACRA therefore seeks declaratory relief confirming that the continued enforcement of race-based legislation in the absence of lawful classification standards, objective temporal limits, and demonstrable advancement of disadvantaged persons – is constitutionally invalid and inconsistent with South Africa’s international legal obligations.
As the courts have warned in cases such as Qwelane v SAHRC and SAHRC v Malema, laws and speech that divide society along racial lines subvert dignity, fuel hostility, and undermine democracy itself. True justice cannot coexist with racial classification.
The time has come to end all forms of race-based laws — once and for all. RSACRA will also prosecute the ANC led government for denying children their constitutional rights and denying citizens their right to safety and security and socio- economic opportunities.
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Date published: 17/03/2026
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