TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 13

Subsection 7

1951 Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act No 52:

U Prohibited persons from entering land or a building without lawful reason, or remaining there without the owner’s permission. Magistrates were granted powers to order squatters out of urban areas, demolish their dwellings and move them to a place as might be determined. Commenced: 6 July 1951

IN FORCE (This Act has been amended several times - see O’Regan 1990): CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE

1951 Bantu Authorities Act No 68:

P Gave recognition to traditional tribal authorities. Commenced: 17 July 1951

Repealed by s 69 of the Black Communities Development Act No 4 of 1984

1951 Black (Bantu) Authorities Act No 68:

L Provided for the establishment of tribal, regional and territorial authorities in the reserves. Commenced: 17 July 1951

IN FORCE as on September 1996: LOCAL GOVERNMENT

1952 Black (Native) Laws Amendment Act No 54:

U The 1945 Urban Areas Consolidation Act was amended to specify that all black persons, men and women, over the age of sixteen were to carry passes and that no black person was to be allowed to stay in the urban areas longer than seventy-two hours unless they had permission to do so. Section 10, which governed who could stay in the urban areas, stated that black people who had been born in the urban areas and had lived there continuously since then, and those who had been in continuous employment for ten years or continuous residence in the urban areas for fifteen years, were the only categories of black people legally entitled to stay in urban areas (Dugard 1978: 74; Horrell 1978: 173). Powers of authorities were widened to include the ordering of the removal of blacks deemed to be ‘idle or undesirable’ even though they were lawfully in an urban area (s 29 of the 1945 Urban Areas Consolidation Act). If found guilty, a person could be sent to her/his homeland, to a rehabilitation centre or to a farm colony for a period not exceeding two years. Section 29 of the 1945 Urban Areas Consolidation Act permitted the arrest, without a warrant, of any black person believed to be ‘idle or undesirable’. In 1956, a new section was added to s 29, (i.e. s 29 bis) allowing for ‘the removal of an African from an urban area ... where his presence was detrimental to the maintenance of peace and order in any such area’ (Dugard 1978: 77). Because the purpose of this new s 29 was ‘to confer upon local authorities arbitrary powers to rid themselves of “agitators”,’ this new provision (unlike s 29 of Act 25 of 1945) did not ‘provide for an appeal against a banishment order’ (Dugard 1978: 77). (The provisions under this Act are extremely complicated. For a full description see Horrell 1978: 171-95.) Commenced: 27 June 1952

Sections 1-17 repealed by s 33(1) of the Black Labour Act No 67 of 1964, s 18 repealed by s 1(g) of the Abolition of Racially Based Land Measures Act No 108 of 1991; ss 27-32 by s 17 of the Abolition of Influx Control Act No 68 of 1986; and ss 33-8 by s 69(1) of the Black Communities Development Act No 4 of 1984