JUSTICE and Constitutional Development Minister Penuell Maduna will ask Parliament to accede to a 26-year-old United Nations convention that declares apartheid a crime, Maduna announced on Monday. The cabinet has already given the matter the go-ahead, he said in a statement. The issue of acceding to the convention would be brought before parliament at its next sitting. The purpose of the International Convention on the Suppression and the Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid is to declare apartheid a crime, and to criminalise acts of apartheid, Maduna said. The convention was adopted in 1973 and came into operation in 1976. “It is with deep regret that the convention against apartheid has not yet been ratified despite the fact that it is the significant foundation of our new democratic government,” he said. Maduna stressed government’s commitment to ending all forms of racial discrimination.