Ordinary South Africans, as well as our courts, seem to have a schizophrenic attitude towards marriage. On the one hand many people – as well as our courts – seem to revere the traditional institution of marriage. From a young age boys and girls are told that getting married would be one of the ultimate milestones [...]
Posts under ‘discrimination’
The Windows of Heaven (and your wallets) are open!
One of the (many) reasons why I am not a fascist or a Stalinist is because I am rather worried that people might begin to think that I am a repressed and self-hating homosexual who is trying to hide his true self by embracing rightwing Christian fundamentalism. If I ever wavered in my commitment to [...]
On race, transformation and freedom of testation
The South African Constitution contains provisions – including section 8 and section 39 – that allow courts radically to transform the common law and even to reinterpret legislation to bring it in line with the “spirit, purport and object” of the Bill of Rights. One of the concepts in our law that has long been held [...]
What do we talk about when we talk about “transformation”?
Is it at all possible to write sensibly but critically about the way in which the concept of “transformation” has evolved in kleptocratic South Africa? “Transformation” has become a buzzword that is much bandied about and much abused, but few people explain what they mean when they use the word. Like mother hood and apple [...]
Ten countries…. and counting
Argentina became the tenth country (and the first in South America) to provide full marriage equality (including the right to adopt children) to same-sex couples late on Wednesday night. There are now about 250 million people worldwide living in jurisdictions which provide for marriage equity. Here is the list:
2001 Netherlands
2003 Belgium
2005 Spain
2005 Canada
2006 South Africa
2008 Norway
2009 Sweden
2010 [...]
Christine, give them hell!
Multinational steel retailer, Bohler Uddeholm Africa, is probably going to regret the fact that it ever employed Chris(tine) Ehlers. Hopefully the company will also, at some point, begin to regret that its management is filled with people who act like bigots. Christine Ehlers, who was fired as a sales assistant after her employers discovered that [...]
What have Tweedledum and Tweedledee been up to?
Maybe all this goodwill, peace, love and happiness generated by the World Cup in South Africa have finally turned my brian into a mushy pulp. (Miss World contestants must be horrified by the World Cup: with all this love and peace going around they must have nothing left to do but look pretty and sniff [...]
Time for rethink on traditional leaders
Millions of South Africans live much of their lives according to customary law (instead of having their lives regulated via the common law). During the apartheid era, customary law was viewed as second class law. We were told that the law that counted was statute law and, more importantly (for most – white – lawyers and [...]
Discrimination is indivisible
Back in the heady days after the 1994 election South Africa professed to base its foreign policy on human rights principles. When the Nigerian government executed activist and environmental journalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nelson Mandela called it a “heinous act”. But Thabo Mbeki soon put a stop to such folly, aligning South Africa instead with the [...]
On “unfair discrimination” and Afrikaans
A reader of this Blog posed an interesting question today about language discrimination by Pretoria Bars during the World Cup. He wants to know whether it would be unconstitutional for:
the bars in Hatfield, Pretoria/Tshwane, who during the world cup are selling drinks to Afrikaans speakers for R18 and to other persons for R55, however with [...]
