The Democratic Alliance (DA) commended SA Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) chairperson Jody Kollapen on Sunday for lodging an equality case against a Pretoria barbershop that refused him a hair-cut on account of its ”whites-only” policy.
Kollapen, whose commission received a complaint from a black man who was refused service at the Mans Hair Salon in June, went to the Centurion shop on September 24 and was himself refused a haircut on account of his race.
According to the Sunday Independent, an employee at the barber shop told Kollapen the shop had a ”whites-only” policy.
DA human rights spokesperson Dene Smuts said that by acting as the complainant and lodging a case with the Equality Court in Pretoria — set up in June this year — Kollapen was performing a ”splendid public service”.
”Coverage of the case should help publicise the remedies available to members of the public who suffer racist humiliation … It has the excellent effect of telling citizens who are confused that they have equality courts now, and they can go there for a remedy.
”Kollapen is introducing the courts to the people,” Smuts said.
South Africans are, under the constitution, prohibited from unfairly discriminating against each other on the grounds of gender, ethnicity, age, conscience and belief. The prohibition is stipulated in the Equality Act of February 2000.
Now that the act has become operational in the form of the Equality Courts, citizens found to have discriminated unfairly against fellow citizens face penalties ranging from unconditional apologies to the payment of damages against the injured party.
Smuts said the courts can also make recommendations for the revocation of licences, issue restraining orders and orders to comply with the Act and can even defer matters to the prosecution authorities for criminal prosecution.
”Implementation of the constitutional sections of the Equality Act is long overdue. It (the Act) was completed in February 2000, but was held up partially because we argued that the Justice Minister could not constitutionally select the Equality judges.
”We were vindicated when this provision was amended last year…. Now we that we have the courts, Kollapen may very well be testing the waters, trying to demonstrate to the public. That is the effect of what he’s doing and its an excellent effect, I absolutely applaud it,” Smuts said.
Kollapen, who told the Sunday Independent he was disappointed that racism was still being practised in South Africa ten years after the fall of the apartheid regime, said now that the Equality Courts were operational, cases usually taken to the SAHRC could finally be dealt with in court.
The courts have so far received about ten cases nationally. – Sapa