TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 13

Subsection 22

1984 Aliens and Immigration Laws Amendment Act No 49:

U Amended the 1937 Aliens Act, the 1939 Aliens Registration Act and the 1972 Admission of Persons to the Republic Regulation Act, used against squatters (RRS 1984: 345-6). Several critics warned that the ‘amendment act would lead to a massive clamp-down on Africans present in white-designated areas but officially regarded as citizens of the “independent” homelands’ (RRS 1984: 345). It is not clear from the Race Relations Survey whether this did in fact occur. What is more than clear is that those South Africans eligible to carry passes, if found not carrying one, were arrested and prosecuted for a wide range of influx control related offences (e.g. being in a prescribed area for longer than 72 hours without permission or having taken up employment without the necessary permission being granted).

Commenced: 18 June 1984 Repealed by s 60 of the Aliens Control Act No 96 of 1991

1984 KaNgwane proclaimed a self-governing territory

1984 Group Areas Amendment Act No 101:

U Amended the 1966 Act in order to give effect to the policy of declaring certain central business districts as free trade areas (RRS 1986: 11). Free trade areas were not permitted in black townships since these were established in terms of the 1945 Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act and other laws and not in terms of the 1966 Group Areas Act.

Commenced: 30 May 1985

Repealed by s 48 of the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act No 108 of 1991

1984 Public Service Act No 111:

S Provided for the organisation and administration of the public service, and laid down terms of office and conditions of employment and discharge for members of the public service.

Assent gained: 12 July 1984; commencement date not found

Repealed by s 43 of Proc 103 of 1994

1985 20 July midnight: State of emergency declared in terms of Public Safety Act No 3 of 1953, affected 36 magisterial districts. Regulations (Proc R 121 of 1985) were amended as follows:

• The power to detain was extended to every member of the police, railways police, prisons and army.
• Detainees had no right to visitors or a lawyer, nor were they entitled to receive letters or any reading material other than the Bible.
• No member of the force could be brought to account, by civil suit or criminal charge, for unlawful actions in carrying out emergency laws.
• It became a crime to disclose the identity of any detainee without prior disclosure by the Minister of Law and Order.
• The Commissioner of Police was authorised to impose blanket censorship on press coverage of the emergency.
• • The Minister of Law and Order was empowered to ban organisations, individuals, or publications which were ‘calculated to endanger the security of the State or the maintenance of public order’.

Courts were denied jurisdiction to set aside any order or rule issued under emergency regulations.