The seven Coloured Department of Correctional Services employees who won a victory in the Constitutional Court against the discriminatory employment plan of the department‚ have hailed the judgment as a victory for minority groups, says a TimesLIVE report. They said it was a shame they had to turn to the top court to restore their dignity as a people. The court held that the decisions of the department not to promote the seven applicants to the posts they sought‚ constituted unfair discrimination and unfair labour practices. The court also said those who had been denied promotion and whose posts were available must be promoted and remunerated the balance of what they would have been paid when they were denied promotion. It said if the posts had been filled‚ they should be paid th e remuneration and benefits of the posts for which they had applied.

Solidarity v Department of Correctional Services [2016] ZACC 18 Full TimesLIVE report  

In a majority judgment by Justice Ray Zondo‚ he said that in failing to use the demographic profile of both the national and regional economically active population to set the numerical targets for employment‚ the department acted in breach of its obligations in terms of the Employment Equity Act, notes another TimesLIVE report. Zondo denied applications for leave to appeal by three applicants. He found that in the case of the white man who had applied for promotion‚ the department had shown there was over-representation in the category to which he had applied. In the case of two coloured applicants‚ one was not recommended for appointment while the other applicant was later appointed to the post she had wanted. The report adds in a concurring judgment‚ acting Justice Robert Nugent said if racial proportions were to be the measure of a representative workforce‚ they must necessarily reflect the distribution of people making up those proportions. He said to do otherwise produced irrational anomalies‚ as was evident in this case. Nugent said he saw no rationality in restricting almost the half the population of the Western Cape to 8.8% employment opportunities in that province‚ while extending 8.8% of employment opportunities in Limpopo to the 0.3% that represented the coloured population in that province.

Full TimesLIVE report  

Solidarity’s Anton van der Bijl said the ruling had permanently changed the implementation of affirmative action in respect of minorities, notes a report in The Citizen. ‘The verdict does not only mean a landslide victory for the particular applicants, but for every member of a minority group in SA. The verdict is a reaffirmation that affirmative action plans have to comply with constitutional principles and that such plans must be subject to a nuanced approach.’ Van der Bijl said the ruling was a confirmation that all relevant factors, such as the racial demographics of a specific region – among others – should be considered when affirmative action plans were devised and applied. ‘This verdict furthermore amounts to a major setback to government policy to implement the national racial demographics everywhere in SA. We will take the necessary steps to ensure that this judgment is adhered to,’ said Van der Bijl.

Full report in The Citizen  

Correctional Services preached non-racialism while allowing racist policies to flourish, one of the seven litigants said outside the Constitutional Court, according to a News24 report. ‘What we have found most frustrating all this time was the statement of leaders preaching unity and non-racialism, while on a practical level these racist practices and policies were allowed to flourish unchallenged,’ Christopher February is quoted as saying. He said his and his colleagues’ four-year court battle had been difficult. ‘Our enemy was racism, but most specifically institutional racism in Correctional Services that we knew was immoral and wrong and had to be defeated,’ February said. He thanked Solidarity for taking their fight to the courts. He said they had knocked on several doors, including civil society groups, and were turned down, before turning to the trade union. February said the department had for years only appointed blacks, to the exclusion of coloureds.  

Full News24 report