Methodology

Deciding what “race law” is and what it is not

At common law, the race of a person is legally irrelevant. This attribute can, however, be made relevant by statutes (legislation), regulations, and judgments of the superior courts. When an individual’s race is made relevant, the instrument through which that is done or enforced, is here included under the term “race law.”

In other words, “race law” is defined as any positive law, including statutes, regulations, and judgments of the courts, that makes or recognises race, skin-colour, or ethnicity as legally relevant.

Instruments that remove an existing racial handicap, burden, or disability from law – that is, makes race irrelevant – are not regarded as race law.

A mere textual reference to the words “white,” “black,” “disadvantage,” or “race” does not automatically automatically triggered inclusion in the Index. Some legal relevance must arise, regardless of whether that relevance is harmful or beneficial.

Provisions are first checked to determine that the reference is to a person’s skin-colour, race, or ethnicity (rather than the “race” of plants or animals, “white” phosphorus, or a prohibition on “disadvantaging” small businesses with anti-competitive conduct), and that the provision qualifies under the above definition of “race law” above (rendering race, skin-colour, or ethnicity legally relevant).

Inclusions and exclusions from the Index

At present, the Index includes:

Acts of the Parliament of South Africa containing original, free-standing provisions

In future the Index will include:

Regulations of the South African executive government
Acts of the Provincial Legislature of the nine provinces / Ordinances of the previous four provinces and one territory
Regulations of the provincial governments
By-laws of the various municipalities
Judgments of the superior courts

The Index excludes:

Amendment or Repeal Acts of the Parliament of South Africa that do not contain original, free-standing provisions
Laws that make direct, indirect, or implicit references to race (usually in preambles) without operationalising those references
Laws that amend or repeal other laws by removing racial handicaps, burdens, or disabilities
Anti-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on race

Utilising the Index

The following is to be noted when considering the labels and tags in the Index:

Laws marked as ‘Racial’ are laws that, to the best of our knowledge, were originally adopted as racial laws, rather than having been subsequently racialised.
Laws marked as ‘Deracialised’ are laws that are operative today or, by the time they were repealed, no longer contained racial disabilities like they once did. It will take some time for us to discover which, especially historical, laws ended their periods of operation racially or deracialised. Nine (9) of the 145 laws operative today have been deracialised since they were originally adopted as race laws.
Laws marked as ‘Racialised’ are laws from a previous era that, to the best of our knowledge, did not originally contain racial disabilities but have, in the present era, been amended to do so.
Laws marked as ‘Uncommenced’ are race laws that have been validly adopted as laws, but have (or their racial provisions have) not yet, to the best of our knowledge, come into operation. If a law is already in operation, but an Amendment Act that racialises that Act is not yet in operation, it is marked as ‘Amdt Uncommenced.’
Laws marked as ‘Repealed’ are laws that were formally and explicitly repealed by later laws (indicated by their Act No/Year). Although it is understood in law that a new statute can by necessary implication repeal an older statute if there is total incongruence between the two, the practice has been for the process to be explicit, not implicit. Any law not formally and explicitly repealed is therefore marked as ‘Operative.’ Some of these originally racial laws (to be distinguished from subsequently racialised laws) from before 1994, that remain formally operative today, are however not enforceable, given the intervention of the 1993 and 1996 constitutions.
Laws marked as ‘Ancillary’ are laws that are not necessarily directly racial in their text but form a necessary part of race law. These laws are either downstream from other race laws, meaning those other race laws are necessary for these laws to operate effectively; or they are upstream from other race laws, meaning these laws are necessary for those other race laws to operate effectively. Laws whose racial nature are unclear are also marked as Ancillary.

Updates to the Index

While the Index is updated continuously offline, these updates will only be published onto this website at most twice per month. Such updates can be tracked on the News & Updates page.

Latest updates:

11 June 2025 (minor update)
6 May 2025 (minor update)
13 March 2025 (minor update)
9 January 2025 (minor update)
18 October 2024 (minor update)
20 August 2024 (minor update)
24 October 2023 (minor update)
25 November 2022 (major update)