The Population Registration Act Repeal Act, 1991 (Act No. 114 of 1991) is an act of the

Parliament of South Africa The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature. It is located in Cape Town; the country's legislative capital city, capital. Under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameralism, bicameral Parliamen ...

which repealed the

Population Registration Act, 1950 The Population Registration Act of 1950 required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics as part of the system of apartheid. Social rights, political rights, educational ...

, ending the legal

racial classification Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...

of South Africans which formed the basis of

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

Background

State President

F. W. de Klerk Frederik Willem de Klerk ( , ; 18 March 1936 – 11 November 2021) was a South African politician who served as the seventh and final state president of South Africa from 1989 to 1994 and as Deputy President of South Africa, deputy president a ...

announced his government's intention to repeal the Population Registration Act in his speech at the opening of Parliament on 1 February 1991. The bill was passed by the

Tricameral Parliament The Tricameral Parliament, officially the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, was the legislature of South Africa between 1984 and 1994, established by the South African Constitution of 1983, which gave a limited political voice to ...

on 17 June. The

House of Assembly House of Assembly is a name given to the legislature or lower house of a bicameral parliament. In some countries this may be at a subnational level. Historically, in British Crown colonies as the colony gained more internal responsible g ...

(representing

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

voters) passed it on a vote of 89 to 38, with the Conservative Party voting against. The

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...

and House of Delegates (representing

Coloured Coloureds () are multiracial people in South Africa, Namibia and, to a smaller extent, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Their ancestry descends from the interracial mixing that occurred between Europeans, Africans and Asians. Interracial mixing in South ...

and Indian voters respectively) passed it unanimously. The act was signed by De Klerk on 27 June and came into effect on the following day. As a result of the Repeal Act, newborns and immigrants no longer had their race registered after June 1991. However, a transitional provision in the act meant that the existing population register, including racial classifications, was retained until the repeal of the 1983 Constitution. According to the government this was necessary because voting rights under the 1983 Constitution depended on the racial classification of the voter. The

African National Congress The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, fir ...

asserted that the government was using this loophole to retain other apartheid practises, such as discriminatory state pension amounts and segregation in schools. The transitional provision of the Repeal Act ended when the 1983 Constitution was repealed on 27 April 1994 by the Interim Constitution. At this point, the Repeal Act became a

spent enactment In British law and in some related legal systems, an enactment is spent if it is "exhausted in operation by the accomplishment of the purposes for which it was enacted". United Kingdom The scope of Statute Law Revision Bills includes the rep ...

. In 2015 it was proposed for repeal by the

South African Law Reform Commission The South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) is a law reform commission which investigates the state of South African law and makes proposals for its reform to Parliament and the provincial legislatures. It is an independent advisory statutory ...

in its review of legislation administered by the

Department of Home Affairs An interior ministry or ministry of the interior (also called ministry of home affairs or ministry of internal affairs) is a government department that is responsible for domestic policy, public security and law enforcement. In some states, the i ...

Content of the Act

The following is a brief description of the sections of the Population Registration Act Repeal Act:

Definitions and interpretation

;Section 1 Defines in Schedule 1, the Acts repealed by this Act. Defines in Schedule 2, the amendments to numerous Acts. And lastly defines that the existing population register as compiled in terms of the Identification Act, 1986, remains valid until the Constitution changes. ;Section 2 Defines the name of the Act.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Text of the Act
South African legislation 1991 in South African law