The Pretoria Supreme Court yesterday set aside the decision of the Conservative Party-controlled Boksburg town council to reserve the town’s lake and tennis courts for whites only. Mr Justice SW McCreath said the council decision was grossly unreasonable and the only conclusion that could be drawn was the decision to reintroduce petty apartheid had been taken mainly for political reasons.
He said the majority of the town council members supported an existing political philosophy and wanted to express it without considering whether it would be in the interests of all the residents. The judge said the council had clearly not considered other measures to relieve congestion at the lake and the existing rights of a large number of people, including whites, had been affected.
A local authority had to exercise its powers in the interests of its residents of the municipal area as a whole and should not act so unreasonably that its decision proved to be in bad faith, he said. He added that the council should have foreseen that members of races excluded from the facilities would feel offended.
The application was brought by former chairman of the Reiger Party management committee, Buchanan Jantjies, the Boksburg-based Colgate Palmolive company, and Boksburg businessman Roy Mountjoy. The decision was hailed by Brian Currin, national director of Lawyers for Human Rights. He said it signal led, for all practical purposes, the end of the road for the reservation of Separate Amenities Act.
This article originally appeared in the Weekly Mail.
