South Africans Ditch Harsh Detention Law

Negotiators rushing to finish South Africa’s interim constitution agreed Thursday to excise one of apartheid’s harshest laws, which permitted detention without trial.

But representatives of the African National Congress and the white-led National Party government still differed on the details of power-sharing after the nation’s first multiracial election, scheduled for April 27. Amid heightening tension, negotiators extended until Monday their deadline for a final accord on a new constitution and bill of rights.

With little fanfare Thursday, negotiators from black and white parties jettisoned Section 29 of the Internal Security Act, often used to detain without trial opponents of apartheid suspected of subversion.

There was a titter of ironic laughter when a legal expert pointed out that the last people to be detained under Section 29 were white extremists accused of conspiring in the murder of Communist Party leader Chris Hani last April. Another added that many of the negotiators sitting around the table had themselves been detained under Section 29.