South Africa Bill of Rights Proposed by Government

The white-minority government, after insisting for more than four decades that South Africa did not need a bill of rights, officially changed its tune Tuesday, proposing a “charter of fundamental human rights” to take effect before whites relinquish their grip on power.

The charter, proposed in Parliament by Minister of Justice Hendrik J. (Kobie) Coetsee, would empower the courts to protect a number of rights that previous governments have denied to blacks. It calls for freedom of speech, religion, political expression, movement and association. It also would grant all South Africans, regardless of race or gender, equal protection under the law and equal access to public education.

Under the charter, the right to one’s own “language and culture” would be protected. And it makes special provision for South Africans to be able to communicate with the state “through the language of their own choosing.”

“Only in a climate of tolerance can we hope for peace,” Coetsee said.

On one level, the charter would broaden the rights of all South Africans, black as well as white. But it appears to be aimed particularly at calming the fears of whites, many of whom worry that a future black-majority government would oppress the language and culture of the white minority, especially the Afrikaners who have ruled the country since 1948.

Coetsee said the government intends that the rights charter, while open to debate, would be in place before black and white leaders agree on a transitional constitution.

The African National Congress, the government’s main black opposition, sharply criticized the rights charter Tuesday. Although the ANC supports a bill of rights in principle, it believes such a charter should be the product of negotiation between all leaders, black as well as white. And ANC officials have said a bill of rights cannot be fairly enforced in a country that, despite the fact that blacks outnumber whites by 5 to 1, has no black judges.

“For a bill of rights to enjoy legitimacy, authority and moral force, the process of drafting and adopting it must itself be legitimate and democratic,” the ANC said in a statement. “This task is best performed by democratically elected representatives. A bill of rights adopted by the apartheid Tricameral Parliament . . . will not enjoy credibility. A document of such importance should not be the product of a clumsy process.”

Dullah Omar, a Cape Town attorney and member of the ANC’s constitutional committee, said that imposing a bill of rights in the current climate, when blacks still do not have a say in national politics, “does not bring rights to those who are without but rather entrenches the rights of those who already have them.”

Omar noted that two of the nation’s nominally independent homelands, Bophuthatswana and Ciskei, each have bills of rights, even though human rights in those territories are routinely flouted.

However, Coetsee, who, like President Frederik W. de Klerk, served in the Cabinet of previous white governments, said the rights charter is an attempt to level the playing field before national multiracial elections, expected early next year. He said the government is planning to spend about $300,000 publicizing its new charter.

Tony Leon, justice spokesman for the liberal Democratic Party, welcomed what he called the ruling National Party’s “deathbed conversion” to the rights it had systematically trampled for 44 years.

However, he criticized some parts of the charter, including provisions that would reimpose the death penalty and allow suspects to be detained 10 days without charge. He also said the charter contained only “vague and uncertain” provisions on affirmative action. And he criticized it for failing to specifically prohibit state funding for organizations that directly or indirectly discriminate on the basis of race, religion or culture.

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg, police battled a second consecutive day of downtown riots stemming from a protest by black taxi drivers. Two people were killed by police. The taxi drivers are protesting traffic police harassment and strict licensing requirements for the minibus vans they drive.