Suchergebnisse

In this article the authors consider the early complaints lodged at the pilot equality courts. Since their inception the equality courts have been underutilised. These early complaints are considered against three themes relating to effective legislation: (1) the legislature must be realistic; (2) different groups of people will be influenced in different ways by a new law; and (3) Parliament should see to it that its laws are popularised. In conclusion the authors offer recommendations on how the utilisation of the equality courts may be improved, among others that equality court personnel should be adequately trained; one forum should be created where any discrimination-related complaint may be lodged; plain language promotional materials should be developed; the parts of the Act that relate to the promotion of equality must come into force; and the workings of the equality courts should be included in the Life Orientation curriculum in schools. ; http://www.ahrlj.up.ac.za ; am2020 ; Centre for Human Rights

In this article, we focus on how the education system can be used to promote equality in the context of changing people's hearts and minds – values, morals and mindsets. The duties contained in the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000 ('Equality Act') bind private and public schools, educators, learners, governing bodies and the state. The Equality Act calls on the state and all persons to promote substantive equality, but the relevant sections in the Equality Act have not been given effect yet, and are therefore currently not enforceable. We set out how the duty to promote equality should be concretised in the Equality Act to inter alia use the education system to promote equality in schools; in other words, how should an enforceable duty to promote equality in schools be fashioned in terms of the Equality Act. Should the relevant sections relating to the promotion of equality come into effect in their current form, enforcement of the promotion of equality will take the form of obliging schools to draft action plans and submit these to the South African Human Rights Commission. We deem this approach inadequate and therefore propose certain amendments to the Equality Act to allow for a more sensible monitoring of schools' duty to promote equality. We explain how the duty to promote equality should then play out practically in the classroom to facilitate a change in learners' hearts and minds.