I wish to seek some information in regard to clause 3 (10). It is stated that the council may frame statutes or regulations providing for the establishment of committees of the council and for the appointment by the council as members of such committees of certain persons. I wish to raise this matter only once, but it is a clause which appears in the three Bills that are before us this afternoon. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister what has been the reason for the introduction of this clause, which is a new clause, in the light of the decision this Session when the hon. the Minister agreed that in the Advanced Technical Education Bill it was not necessary for the Act to embody provisions for the formation of committees. The Minister, in reply to me, indicated that although this facility had existed since 1923, it was not really necessary and it was taken from the Bill, and in any case the bodies concerned had the right to form committees. It was therefore not necessary on that basis to have it expressed and written into the Bill. Now I should like the Minister to explain why the difference arises in regard to the universities and colleges for advanced technical education. I may say that I have no objection whatever to the inclusion of the clause. I only seek clarification and motivation for it.

It was contained in the existing Act of 1946, and now we are inserting it in the respective private Acts of the universities. The hon. member will remember that we have already dealt with quite a few universities and that it was inserted in their Acts, and it no longer forms part of the general Universities Act.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 7:

We naturally are in favour of this clause. There is no difference of opinion about the clause itself, because as the clause is worded now it falls into line with the system I mentioned in the Second Reading debate, which we have at the Witwatersrand University, the Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit and the Port Elizabeth University. The only point I wish to make is that under the present law it says that students shall be subject to such disciplinary provisions as the statutes may prescribe. The reason why it is now extended to the statutes or to rules made by the Council is that it is necessary to have something which can be applied more rapidly than a change in the statutes. When there is a change in the statutes it has to be submitted to the Minister. It has to lie on the Table of the House for 30 days, and after that, unless there is a resolution in this House disapproving of the change in the statutes, the changes then become part of the statutes of the university. It is a very cumbersome process, and for that reason we support this clause. There is no ulterior motive in our criticism during the Second Reading debate. The reason why Cape Town and possibly other universities have to have this provision, which Stellenbosch, the Free State University and Potchefstroom have not, is that their situation is complicated by having non-white students. Therefore they have to have summary powers to deal with any situation. We approve of this provision.

Clause put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

I would just say in passing that we have had an opportunity of discussing certain provisions of this Bill with members of the Minister’s staff. We are very grateful for that opportunity and therefore our remarks will be curtailed.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 3:

The point that arises in clause 3 has already been dealt with by the hon. member for Berea and we do not wish to repeat our remarks.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 6:

I have one question to ask on this clause. When a section provides for convocation of a university, we know clearly what it means, but how is the convocation of the University of South Africa constituted? Does it include all graduates; does it include students of all races? Students of all races can graduate the.re. The University of South Africa has students who are educated by correspondence. Do those students, when they graduate, become members of convocation?

It is very clearly stated in clause 6 how the convocation shall be made up. In the first place it shall consist of all persons other than members of the Senate, who immediately before the commencement of this Bill were members of the convocation; secondly, all the members of the Senate; thirdly, all persons who after the said commencement become graduates of the university and, fourthly, all the members of the permanent teaching staff who are not members of the Senate. The whole convocation is set out in the clause.

All graduates except those who say that they want to be excluded?

Yes.

Clause put and agreed to.

Clause 10:

I would like to ask the hon. the Minister for some clarification in regard to this amendment. As far as graduates are concerned the Bill says—

1. (a) admit a graduate of any other university (whether in the Republic or elsewhere) to a status in the University equivalent to that which he possesses in such other university.

That only applies to graduates, but when we come to the higher qualifications for postgraduate courses, we find in paragraph (b) the words “admit as a candidate for a postgraduate degree or diploma in a faculty a person who has passed at a university … and these are the words that I wish to emphasize—

I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he has borne in mind the suggestion that other institutions “deemed by the senate to be of university standing” could be interpreted as applying to the colleges for advanced technical education, and that students who had studied at these institutions would, with the approval of the senate, be recognized for the purposes of post-graduate education?

The words quoted by the hon. member are contained in the present Act.

Clause put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

I would like to say that we have no objection to any of the clauses of this Bill.

Clause put and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

When we were discussing this clause with the hon. the Minister, he suggested in the concluding stages of the debate that we on this side were attempting to open the door for Coloured persons to cross into the white group. I want to say that that is far from our intention. What we are concerned about is that there should be finality, firstly, in regard to classification. So long as the provisions of the new subclause (5) remain in terms of which the secretary can at any time reclassify a person, there will be no finality, except in the case of those fortunate persons whose classification has been confirmed by the Classification Board. I think the Minister will agree with me that those are final and finished when once the 30 day period has elapsed. Sir, why this avenue must be left open to permit of re-classification by the secretary is beyond me. At the present time if somebody wishes to draw the secretary’s attention to what he believes is a wrong classification, he must do so in writing; he must deposit a sum of money with the secretary as proof of his bona fides, and the matter is then opened and investigated. But what can happen now under the amendment is that a private communication can be addressed to the secretary who can act upon it and go through the whole process of investigation with the possibility of a reclassification. During 1966, according to the figures which the hon. the Minister gave me, 108 persons who were classified as Coloured, were able to satisfy the Race Classifications Board that they were in fact white people who had been wrongly classified. Many of those re-classifications by the board resulted from obections lodged by some third party. Sir, I have asked the hon. the Minister three times already during the course of this debate and I want to ask him once again, whether he will indicate to us one instance where there has been a miscarriage of justice under the procedure which has operated heretofore.

I do not think that the Minister will know of any because I am sure that there are no miscarriages of justice that have occurred in those reclassifications. In any case, every one of those persons is now reclassified by the board and their classifications are final and the Secretary or anybody else can do nothing about it once the 30 day period has lapsed. That is why I make an appeal to the Minister in the light of the experience which we have had and in the light of what is going on daily while we are debating this measure in this House. The Classifications Board is sitting and reclassifying people. I ask him to see his way clear to accept the amendment I have moved to this particular section. I want to say to him, and I say this quite categorically, that there has been no miscarriage of justice as far as any of the reclassifications of these persons is concerned during the last few years under the present procedure. I think that the hon. the Minister must not open the door to anonymous letters and communications addressed to the Secretary of which the poor individual knows nothing. I am speaking of the informer system that can be opened up under this section as it is now amended. I do not think that it will be of any value but it can lead to a great deal of hardship and a great deal of injustice as far as various individuals are concerned. For those reasons I appeal to him, if he must have subsection (5), to amend paragraph (b) in the manner I have asked him to do by way of the amendment which I have moved.

Mr. Chairman, I fail to understand the difficulties the Opposition have with this particular clause. I also fail to understand how they reconcile the various points of view which they have expressed. On the one hand the hon. member for Green Point has appealed that the door should not be opened for communications to the Secretary. Other members on that side have appealed in the course of this Committee debate that there should be an opportunity to rectify genuine mistakes. If the powers are not given to the Secretary, how will a genuine mistake then be rectified? It may be due to clerical inadvertence. How must the Secretary rectify these matters, if he does not enjoy the powers given him by this subsection? The Secretary has always had these powers. All that has happened now is that these powers have been restricted in so far as those people who have been classified by a board are beyond the jurisdiction of the Secretary. As regards the very fact which the Opposition have raised, namely, that there are hard luck cases and people who have not made use of their powers of appeal within the period of 30 days or the extended period that may be granted by the Minister, how is that position to be met? For that very purpose this subsection is in the Bill, namely, to give the Secretary the opportunity to do so where information reaches him, whether from his own department or through an appeal from somebody who has been classified. It gives him the opportunity to go into the facts and to reclassify only after giving that particular person an opportunity of being heard, or he may refer the matter to a board. I cannot see what objection the Opposition can have to this safeguard to remove the possibility of a genuine mistake. The hon. member says that they want finality. I fail to understand this. On the one hand there is an objection that the Minister is drawing a rigid line and on the other hand there is a plea that the door should be closed. It is a completely contradictory approach to the matter.

What hon. members appear to forget is this. If they feel that the Secretary may possibly err in his judgment and that this door which has been left open may lead to abuse, I must point out, as the hon. member for Prinshof has pointed out before, that such an aggrieved person can go to the Supreme Court and get an order from the court that the Secretary should exercise a proper discretion and bring his mind to bear upon the matter. Over and above that, there is always, so that the door can never really be closed by whatever legislation is introduced, the inherent jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to consider any injustice, brought to its notice, in the exercise of its discretion and judgment. Anyone who reads the Supreme Court Act cannot deny that the inherent jurisdiction of the Supreme Court overrides the provisions of this Act. As far as the amendment which the hon. member for Green Point has moved is concerned, I want to say that it will only serve to create further uncertainty in regard to subsection (5). What possible objection can there be?

On Friday I think the hon. member for Umlazi kept on saying that we were concerned with descent—he kept on hammering the question of descent—and he asked the Minister to re-read the Bill. I am asking the hon. member to re-read the Bill himself. Subsection (5) has nothing to do with descent. Subsection (5) deals with the classification of children following the classification of their parents. It has no reference to descent. Once these people have been classified, the children follow their classification whatever the descent of those parents may be. Once those parents have been classified in terms of the other sections of the Act, their classification stands until it is changed. The children must follow that classification. Therefore it is not descent with which we are concerned. The parents have been classified in terms of section 1 of the 1962 Act. They are thus classified and that provision has not been changed. The application of that provision is subject, as we have discussed it in committee, to certain legal inferences. Subsection (5) can therefore harm no one because, as has been stated repeatedly on this side of the House, what prejudice does a child suffer if he must follow the classification of his parents? After all, a child cannot be of a different classification from that of his parents. If, in terms of the subsection to which the hon. member objects, one of a child’s parents is non-White, surely as we see it traditionally in this country the offspring of that marriage is non-White.

How can you tell?

The hon. member wants to know how one can tell. If the one parent is classified as non-White, then it follows logically that the offspring of that marriage of White and non-White cannot be White. We therefore arrive at a system where we will prevent the very hardship to which these hon. members object, namely a system that ensures that there shall not be a division in a family and that all shall follow the classification of their parents. If it is a mixed marriage, then they should all follow the same classification, namely that they are non-Whites. I therefore fail to see what objection hon. members can have to this section and particularly to the section giving the Secretary certain powers, powers for which they plead on the one hand and which they condemn on the other hand.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Odendaalsrus confirms the point which we made earlier in this debate and which my hon. Leader also made when he spoke in the second reading debate, namely that the object of this legislation is to classify a person downwards and never upwards. The hon. member said that if one of the parents is non-White, the offspring can never be White. That is what the hon. member has said.

It would have been a good thing if that hon. member had been in this House on an occasion when the hon. member for Durban (Central) gave us a talk—let us call it that—in one of his first speeches on the Mendelian theory. What these hon. members forget is that by this process we are going to take people who have always qualified as White by appearance and acceptance in terms of the Act …

The hon. member is now discussing the principle of the Bill. I cannot allow that.

No, Sir, with respect, I am trying to offset the point which has been made by the hon. member for Odendaalsrus. Where these people were acceptable and where they were apparently White, even though one parent, as it says here, was non-White, they have in the past been accepted as White. Now the hon. member says that if one parent is non-White, the children can never be accepted and they can never graduate upwards to become White. It brings in another aspect which was discussed in 1950 when this Act was under discussion. When does a person stop being White or non-White? What percentage of Coloured blood must they have in their veins? If we are to condemn a person at this particular stage because one parent is not White, what is going to happen to the person who is always going to be non-White? That is the object of this Bill. We have made our point quite clearly and so has the hon. member for Odendaalsrus.

I want to point out to the hon. member that he is merely repeating.

I am leaving that point now, Sir.

May I ask the hon. member a question?

No. not at the moment. I only have ten minutes. The hon. member can always speak after me. I want to come back to a point in regard to which the hon. the Minister replied to me on Friday. The hon. the Minister said that under this clause, when a classification was being reconsidered by the Secretary, he only had—I am summing up the hon. the Minister’s reply—to see if the parents were both classified, so that there could be no witch-hunt or anything of that nature. The Minister was right up to that point, but what he forgets is that if the parents have not been classified, they fall under the provisions of clause 1 of this Bill. This is where I said the witch-hunt comes in.

Clause 1 has been disposed of.

The hon. member for Odendaalsrus said that he could not understand why we were taking exception to third party interference. The hon. the Minister said that third party objections, as they are taking place today, were not in fact excluded because a third party could go to the Secretary and start in him the train of thought which would lead to his considering the reclassification of the person concerned. This is exactly the point. This must start a witch-hunt. The hon. the Minister knows that it must. As the hon. member for Green Point has made quite clear a third party now has to go via the medium of the courts of law. He must come out into the open and go before the public courts where the case may be heard. Under this clause he can go anonymously to the Secretary and start this process. The reclassifications can then be started. This is the thing we are objecting to. I should now like to come back to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Green Point. The hon. member for Odendaalsrus said that he could not imagine why we want to remove this part of sub-clause (b). He could not understand our objection. Of course we have objections to it, Sir. I have made those objections quite clear. I think everybody on this side has made those objections quite clear. I must support the amendment of the hon. member for Green Point. I do so for a new reason. If a person is going to be classified as a Coloured if one of his parents is not White according to the rest of this clause, and that is done by a board, he can never hope to be reclassified, whereas if the hon. the Minister will accept the amendment of the hon. member for Green Point, the Secretary or the Board can in fact do something about it because they are not bound for ever by the second part of this clause. I think the Minister should leave himself a certain amount of room in which to manouvre. We have come across cases already of people who are classified as White, who fall exactly under the provisions of subsection (5)(b) There are people who have been classified as White and who fall under the provisions of this paragraph. Those people are justifiably classified as White, because they appear to be White and have been accepted as White people. He is now going to exclude every one of those. If those people, on the recommendation of the Secretary, come before a board for reclassification the board has no option whatsoever but to declare that those people shall be non-White, although they had previously been accepted as White.

[Inaudible.]

The hon. member interjects, but let me tell him this. Surely to goodness this Government, as harshly as they intend to apply this Act, and as hard as they try to cover up the loopholes, must accept that there are cases, however few they may be, where the Minister, the Secretary or the court should have the right to judge that case on its merits, and that there should not be a blanket judgment such as this hon. member wants to apply to these people. If we can exclude this and it saves one person from being reclassified as Coloured, justifiably in the opinion of the Minister, in the opinion of the Secretary and in the opinion of the courts, surely we will have done our duty by excluding the other part of this clause, instead of just putting in a blanket clause. As the hon. member for Prinshof said, they are getting through the fence. Does it matter if one person in thousands or millions is going to get through that fence, justifiably, in the opinion of the courts and the Minister? Surely we should leave that channel open for that one person who is justifiably classified as White. I whole-heartedly support the amendment moved by the hon. member for Green Point.

I want to deal with a few matters which have been raised here now. The hon. member for Green Point says he has asked me three times already. Perhaps he did so for the fourth time this afternoon. He asked me whether I could quote him one instance of “miscarriage of justice by the courts”. My answer is “no” in so far as the courts in their legal opinion interpreted the Act as it stood at that time. However, I want to put a counter-question to the hon. member for Green Point: While the Secretary also had the right to reclassify in terms of section 5 (3) of that same Act, would he suggest that the Secretary had acted wrongfully, will fully and arbitrarily? I do not think the hon. member will say that. He admits it. Very well. If the courts have done their duty according to their interpretation—and that is what they are there for—and if the Secretary has done the same, we should in the first place not blame the courts or the Secretary for the change. I want to ask now: What reason do we have to doubt the integrity, the sound judgement and the fairness of the Secretary if he will retain the same powers under these new provisions of this new amending Act as those he has had before? I admit that the courts will not have the same unfettered jurisdiction. We shall come to that clause later. It will be binding on the courts to hear appeals and not fresh evidence. That is what I am actually referring to now. But the Secretary will retain the powers he has had, and up to now we have not had the so-called witch-hunt that people fear so much. He has not acted like that in the past and why would he act like that now? That is the one point.

I say now that people who are, in fact, of non-white descent have been classified as Whites under the present provisions of the Act, because they have succeeded as far as appearance—as is laid down in the Act—and association are concerned. It was for the bench to decide what would carry most weight. In other words, when it is said here that we want to go back to descent now, then I say it is not so. We are not going back to descent because if we do, it is white people whom we want to reclassify as non-Whites. In future we shall classify children of mixed blood and children who have not yet been classified, according to the classification of their parents. It cannot be based on descent, because many parents are not, in fact, of pure white descent and have been classified as Whites under the old provisions of the Act. For example, I am thinking of factors such as association, appearance and so forth. They were classified like that not on the strength of their descent, but as a result of the other factors emphasized in the Act. Now the hon. gentlemen are afraid of one thing. They fear that we want to use the provisions of this present measure—namely the powers granted the Secretary in terms of section 5 (4)—to reclassify all those so-called cases which we think have been classified in a way which is contrary to the intention of the legislation, but which have nevertheless been classified in accordance with the provisions of the existing Act. I have given the hon. gentlemen the assurance that that is not the intention. But they now want to know why any reclassifications are to be made by the Secretary. He has had that right all these years, and it was a good thing. These were the same hon. gentlemen who pleaded in the course of the Second Reading debate on this Bill that the Act should remain as it was in 1962 and as it is at present. But surely they foresaw the same dangers in 1962? During the Second Reading debate they did not foresee those dangers, but now they foresee them again. They ask that the Act should remain as it is. They had no objection to the rights and powers of the Secretary. Even when the Secretary received anonymous letters he could, if he were foolish enough to take notice of them and if he wanted to do so, make fresh investigations and reclassify people in terms of the present Act on the strength of the information which had come to his knowledge. He has been able to do that all these years. If he has never acted like that, why should we be afraid that he will do so in future? As a result of his experience and in the exercize of his powers and the administration of this Act the Secretary has found many cases which have been classified incorrectly and which are not in accordance with the true facts. When these matters have come to his notice he has caused the persons to appear before him and has questioned and examined them. Similarly the boards have also had to make reclassifications, and now it is being said that we want to start a witch-hunt. Anyone who is reclassified by the Secretary in terms of the provisions of section 5 (4) has to be informed accordingly. The Secretary may call in the person concerned, he may hear the person, and when he makes investigations to make sure, he may consider all the information he has obtained in that way. If the Secretary still has doubts he may refer the case to a board, which will follow the same procedure. If somebody is not reclassified, however, surely he has no reason to feel dissatisfied? If he is, in fact, reclassified by the Secretary on the strength of factual knowledge or particulars which the Secretary deems sufficient for the purpose of that reclassification, such person has the right to appeal. In the first place he had the right to appeal—I am speaking under correction now —to the board itself. If he cannot get satisfaction from the board he has, as he has now, the right to appeal to the courts. Only in cases which have been referred to the board by the Secretary and in which the board has reconsidered the matter on behalf of the Secretary and has made a reclassification, appeals will not be made to the board, because, Sir, surely it is foolish to appeal to the same board which has reclassified the appellant. The person will then be able to appeal directly to the Supreme Court.

In other words, it really does not seem to me to be a case of hon. members not being able to understand or to follow—it is a question of their not wanting to understand. That is all I can say about the attitude adopted by hon. members opposite. For that reason I am going to say now in advance and in all kindness that unless new arguments are advanced on this clause, I will not be prepared to give any further explanations.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister has said that he cannot understand the attitude of this side of the House and he can only put it down to the fact that we do not want to understand. What we on this side cannot reconcile is that the Minister and other speakers on the Government side have stressed that they want to achieve finality in race classification. They have kept on saying throughout this debate that the amendments which are to be introduced are aimed, amongst other things, at achieving this finality, so that they will reach a stage where everybody’s race classification will be final. If that is what the Minister wants then he is certainly not achieving it by the particular provision which he has in the Bill in terms of which the Secretary is given this power. Because as long as one allows third parties or other people to come to the Secretary and state that the classification of a particular person is incorrect, then nobody can feel sure that his classification is settled once and for all, except only where it has gone before the board. This is our difficulty with this clause, that on the one hand the Minister stresses that the object of all this is to achieve finality so that people will know where they stand with their race classification. If there has to be classification and this is not the principle which is under discussion in this amending Bill—that has been accepted in the principal Act—then surely people are entitled to feel secure and to know, once they have been classified and they accept that position and the classification that has been given them, that this is the end of the matter, this is the final classification once and for all. But this will not be the position in terms of this legislation because for all those classifications which have not gone before a board, and this applies to the vast majority of classifications because only a small percentage is decided by a board, there can never at any time be security because at any time somebody can go to the Secretary and be able to put before him, or might be able to put before him, facts which the Secretary may feel justify him in reopening the case.

I accept that I was wrong when I last dealt with this clause in suggesting that if facts are placed before the Secretary he must react. I accept, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Prinshof, that the Secretary is not obliged to react but, as the clause reads, he may do so. So I would point out to the Minister that the objection is precisely that if he leaves the clause as it is, he cannot give anybody finality because there is at any time the possibility that someone may go to the Secretary with some proof which the Secretary may consider warrants a re-opening of the matter·

The hon. the Minister has said that we have not suggested that the Secretary abuses his powers, but that is not the point. Our point is that the Secretary must carry out the law as Parliament passes it, whether he likes it or not. If Parliament gives him this power to re-open matters at any time, even when the person concerned is satisfied with his classification, then if he feels this is a justifiable case I imagine he will consider it his duty to re-open it, because this is what Parliament requires of him. So it is no use saying to us that we cannot suggest that the Secretary has abused his powers. The point is that he must carry out the duties which the law lays upon him. This matter still remains very unsatisfactory as far as we are concerned, because when this matter was before the House last week I asked the hon. the Minister whether he would accept an amendment in terms of which the Secretary would exercise this power only at the request of the person whose classification was in issue. If the Minister did that, it would not be so bad because there would at least be the assurance that this power could be exercised only if the person concerned was dissatisfied with his classification. This also would avoid the possibility that there would be no finality, because everybody would know that as long as a person was satisfied with his classification, nobody could have this change made by putting information before the Secretary. It seems to us that this is a very reasonable amendment, and frankly we do not understand the Minister’s refusal to accept this point of view, because by not accepting this restriction he is opening the door for people to come and put before the Secretary information to upset classifications at any time and this, we think, is bad. As I have said, if there is to be classification, people ought to know that at some stage there is going to be finality. But they cannot be so satisfied in terms of this legislation because at any time people can put information before the Secretary which means that in the bulk of classifications the matter remains open until such time as a classification has been before the Board. This seems to us to be a most unsatisfactory situation.

The hon. the Minister suggested that we accepted this provision in the 1962 Act, but I believe that the Minister is quite wrong. I have not had the time since his last speech to check the debate, but I believe that we have at all times taken the view that this particular power given to the Secretary is too wide.

It is the same clause as it was before.

I accept that, but my point is that we have always objected to it.

You could not find any proof that the clause had been abused.

The Minister was not listening. He was talking to the hon. member for Prinshof when I dealt with it. I say we do not suggest that the Secretary has abused it. Our whole point is that he has to carry out the law as Parliament passes it, and Parliament tells him that at any time—this is the effect of it—when information is placed before him which suggests that there has been a wrong classification, and he feels that there may have been a wrong classification, he may re-open it. [Time expired.]

I want to assure the hon. the Minister that nothing was further from my mind than to suggest that the Secretary or the regional representatives have done anything other than their duty as far as the implementation of this Act is concerned. In fact, they have been charged with a task which, thank heavens, Fortune has not given to me to carry out, because they have to try to do something for which there is no scientific or juristic basis or definition.

The point which concerns me is this. The new section 5 brings descent into the picture in regard to race classification. In other words, a child descended from parents classified in a certain way shall be classified in a certain way. I want to refer, briefly, to an extract from the judgment of Mr. Justice Van Zyl in the Olieschlager case, where he dealt with the technical meaning of “descent”. He quoted from a case decided in the Appellate Division in 1945 which had nothing to do with race classification, and I quote from his judgment—

That was decided before 1950. Mr. Justice Watermeyer, dealing with the question of classification, said in the judgment in T. v. Secretary for the Interior—

That was before we had this clause which we now have before us.

Order! The hon. member is now dealing with a matter, but I cannot see what connection it has with this Bill at all. It has no connection with this particular clause of the Bill.

With the greatest of respect, Sir, may I refer you to the proposed new subsection (5) on page 4, which reads—

1. (a) a person shall be classified as a white person if his natural parents have both been classified as white persons.

In other words, descent …

Order! I follow what the hon. member wants to convey, but the point is that those judgments were given before the passing of the Population Registration Act. At present there are definitions for all the races. No definitions existed when those judgments were given.

Sir, I am coming to my reasons for asking the hon. the Minister not to make it obligatory, when one parent is white and the other Coloured …

Order! The hon. member is now going into the principle and I cannot allow that.

Sir, I am not querying your ruling in this matter. The point I am trying to make is the injustice of saying that because one parent happens to be a Coloured, the child, no matter what that child’s appearance might be, no matter what his future might be, no matter what his acceptance might be, shall for all time be regarded as Coloured.

Order! That has been repeated over and over again in the debate on this clause.

That is the point that Mr. Justice Watermeyer made.

Order! The hon. member has made that point before.

I just want to point out that Mr. Justice Watermeyer said that acceptance was, of course, a matter which can change, and possibly also appearance, particularly in the case of very young children. That is the injustice of subsection (5) (b) if it remains unaltered, because that child can grow up to be accepted as a white person according to the test of appearance, acceptance, conduct and deportment, but if this clause is passed that child can never be anything but Coloured.

In terms of this clause the State President-in-Council is granted the right to create subgroups by proclamation. Five or six years ago I objected in this House to the subgroups which had been created. I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister not to fall into the same trap again.

Order! That position is not being changed in this Bill. It is not under discussion at all. Those provisions form part of the existing legislation.

Subsection (2) reads as follows—

Order! Only the last line in the subsection read out by the hon. member is new; the rest forms part of the existing legislation and is not being amended.

I want to appeal to the hon. the Minister on the strength of the new words being inserted here, namely “or any proclamation purporting to have been issued in terms of this subsection”.

Order! The hon. member is appealing to the hon. the Minister to have a principle amended which is already contained in the Act, and I cannot allow that. The principle was disposed of when the Act was passed originally. All that is being done here is that the administrative machinery is being created.

With due respect, Sir, does the insertion of these new words not give me the right to bring this matter to the hon. the Minister’s notice?

Order! The hon. member should have done that during the Second Reading debate; he cannot do so now; we are having the Committee Stage now.

In any case, I have already replied to that point.

May I accept that the hon. the Minister took cognizance of this point during the Second Reading debate?

Yes, I have taken cognizance of that point.

I just want to try to answer the question raised by the hon. Minister, namely, why the secretary might now attempt to reclassify people though he may not have done this before. The hon. the Minister concedes that the secretary has the power to order a reclassification on receiving information or that he may do so on his own. The hon. the Minister says that he will not do so since he has not done so before, but I would like to suggest two reasons why he might do it in the present case. Firstly, the hon. the Minister himself said in his Second Reading speech that he was making this whole legislation retrospective to 1950 because he did not want people classified on two different bases. If that is so, then unless the secretary does resort to reclassification, we are in fact going to have that situation. At the present time people are classified on a certain basis and on certain criteria, and in the future people are going to be classified on different criteria. And therefore if one is going to reach the objective which the hon. the Minister has in mind, namely, not to have people classified on two sets of criteria, then there will be an incentive for the secretary to attempt to eliminate that. There is also a second reason.

May I just remind the hon. member that the 1962 legislation was also retrospective to 1950, and in spite of that your fears were not realized.

Order! I want to point out to the hon. member that there is nothing in this clause to say that it will be retrospective. Retrospectivity is only provided for in the last clause, clause 7.

That is so, but, with respect, one cannot avoid this subject entirely because it is this clause which gives the secretary the power to reclassify where a classification is incorrect and, of course, there is the fact that this retrospectivity, which is provided for in clause 7, does relate to every single clause in this Bill. I do suggest therefore that since this particular clause is being made retrospective, it has the effect which I am contending for.

Order! But will the hon. member not re-argue the whole point again when we come to clause 7?

I should not think so, Sir.

I take the hon. member’s word for that. In the circumstances I will allow him to argue the matter under this clause.

Sir, I must abide by your ruling at all times, it does seem to be a fair argument to use here, but, if it is not on clause 7, then I am sure you will rule me out of order.

If I may just get back to the hon. the Minister, the Minister says that the new definition was introduced in 1962 and he points out that the secretary did not attempt to reclassify people. But there were, of course, certain reclassification procedures. In this case we have the Minister in charge of this measure stating that he does not want to have two registers based on two different sets of criteria, and this might well lead him and the secretary, who takes his cue from the Minister, to attempt to reconcile these two by going in for reclassifications.

It will be better to say specifically in the Bill that this cannot take place, but failing that, we should have an assurance in the clearest terms, because there are many people who have been classified as Whites and whose classification we may now accept. One must bear in mind that it is partly because the Minister and the Department feel that certain borderline cases have been classified as White when they should not have been so classified, that this Bill is being introduced. One can quite easily understand that where these have not been classified by a court or board, it may well be that this Government, if not this hon. Minister, may feel that now it is its duty to have these changes made. As this stands there has been a great deal of unhappiness connected with this measure and previous measures, for obvious reasons. There has been great unhappiness, far greater than any of us here can imagine. We now have the situation, since finality has not been reached, that the possibility of reclassification in terms of the new law is opened up and many people who may have felt, after receiving their classification other than by a court or board, that they are now finally classified will in fact find that the matter is thrown back into the melting pot. We do therefore ask that the hon. the Minister should attempt to avoid this situation which is fraught with unhappiness for so many people. If he is not prepared to include it in the Bill, I would ask him to give the most clear pronouncement in this regard to bring the position into line with the suggestions made, namely that reclassification will only take place when it is requested by the individual himself if he feels aggrieved.

Amendment proposed by Mr. Murray, put and negatived (Official Opposition dissenting).

Clause, as printed, put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: G. P. van den Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Clause, as printed, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 3:

Mr. Chairman we on this side of the House are going to oppose this clause. Our reasons have been made quite clear during the course of argument on this Bill. As section 9 of the Act is presently worded, it says that information on any person whose name shall be included in the population register shall in fact be furnished by the guardian or by the person concerned, if he is able to do so. We believe that that more than adequately covers the needs of the Registrar. Now, this new clause 3, which amends section 9, inserts a new subsection (2) which says that the information regarding registration of births, retrospectively, from the commencement of this Act, namely 1950, shall be considered to have been given for the purposes of compiling the population register, in other words of including particulars of that person in the register. This is a worse example than those we have opposed in previous clauses, I refer for example to section 3 of the Act, which says that he may use information from the 1951 census for the purpose of compiling the register. If you remember, Sir, our objections were then that in many cases the information was not given by the person affected. We have already moved an amendment to try to overcome this particular problem. Here, when birth registrations from 1950 are going to be used specifically, as is laid down in this clause, in almost 100 per cent of the cases it becomes obvious that the information which has been given will firstly not have been given by the person who is going to be classified. I see a smile on the hon. the Minister’s face.

It is said in the Bill and in the Act that the guardian can object, but there is another aspect to this too. That aspect is that when that information was given originally in 1950 and up to now, it was subject to the same objection as we have to the census being used, because the person was not told that this information which he was giving, in this case in respect of the registration of a birth, was going to be used for the purpose of compiling a population register. I think that all of us who have had to deal with cases of aggrieved persons under this Act have been struck by the haphazard and lackadaisical manner in many cases in which births have been registered. This Minister’s predecessor in his 1962 speech on the Population Registration Amendment Bill conceded that that was so and that for a long time no records at all were kept before 1915 in many of the provinces, and that the information that had been given from time to time was not of the most reliable sort for the purposes of compiling this register. What is going to happen now? Instead of calling for the information under the existing section 9, or section 9 (1), as it now becomes, the Secretary can now go to the register of births. He can page through it and investigate. He can carry on his own investigation in his leisure moments, or he can get someone to do it for him. He can go back as far as 1950 and look through everybody’s birth registration, who was born from that date onwards, and then decide, under the clause we have just dealt with, namely clause 2, whether he will reclassify these people or not. The Minister can get up and say to me that he is in fact not going to do this, but I must go by what this Bill before us says. This Bill, as I read it, does not debar the Secretary from doing so. He can do so, as I see it. The Minister may have a different objective. He will probably tell us, but I am just telling him what I, as a person confronted with this Bill, having to read it and decide what it can do, believe can be done in terms of clause 3, taken in conjunction with the previous clause. I would like the hon. the Minister to tell us whether in fact this is so.

In any case I want to tell the hon. the Minister in no uncertain terms that we object to this extra means of getting information for this register. Clause 3 states that the census and any other information available to the Registrar, may be used. Section 9 states that the person concerned, whose name should be on the register, or his guardian if he is under 16 years of age, must furnish the information. That is quite adequate without now going back to 1950 to see everybody’s birth certificates. I think this is a bad clause. It is another snoopy clause, if you like to look at it that way, where people who gave information at the time in all good faith, believing that they were just registering the birth of a child, now find that they have given information which might well be used against that child for the purposes of classifying him in terms of the population register. We do not like this clause one bit.

Perhaps I may curtail the argument on this clause slightly by furnishing the following particulars or explanation to the hon. member. There are only two forms which will apply for registration. The first is the form referred to in section 3, namely the census form. In terms of section 9 another form is prescribed by the Secretary. That is how the Act reads at present. Since this Act was passed in 1950, no other form has ever been prescribed. The Secretary has not prescribed any other form. Under this Act all children are registered on the day of their birth. They are then also classified. That has been the case since 1951. If the children’s names did not appear in the census, then in terms of section 9 this birth registration form was an adequate and useful one, because it contained enough particulars which could be used for the purposes of registration and classification. If that classification was incorrect an objection could be raised, because they were informed of it. The fact of the matter is, however, that the contents of those birth certificates could not be used against a person. They are used only for these purposes, because they were in any event not completed by the person himself. They will therefore not be used against him. Because we do not see the necessity for prescribing new and additional forms, as this one has provided us with adequate particulars, the procedure that has been followed since 1959 is being legalized. That is all that is happening here. None of the hon. member’s misgivings with regard to abuse, hardships and burrowing in people’s past, in consequence of particulars on their birth certificates, need cause the hon. member any fears, for otherwise that would have been the practice since 1951. We merely want the particulars which we could not get from the census form in terms of section 9 and which we may perhaps get from the birth certificate. Through the years we have taken the particulars from that certificate, and we want to do so in future as well, but we now want to legalize it unequivocally. I repeat that through the amending Bill we merely seek to legalize the extraction of certain information. Previously we extracted it from certain forms, and if we could use it against people we would certainly have used it against them illegally. To make it quite clear that it is not our object to use particulars furnished by the people themselves against them, we state here that the person who is to be classified must have completed and signed the forms himself.

Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the Minister’s explanation. As we understand it, what the hon. the Minister is saying is that section 9 provides for the furnishing of a form in the case of persons whose names do not appear on the register. What the Minister says is that, instead of having a separate form for the purpose of section 9, the application or the particulars for registration of a birth will be regarded as the form required by section 9. The hon. the Minister nods his head and accepts this as correct. This we understand. But now several difficulties arise in regard to this. First of all, there is the fact that in terms of the proposed amendment this is to be made retrospective to the fixed date which is the date when the original Act came into operation. The Minister said that he accepts that information provided on a form not filled in by the person concerned or his guardian should not be used against that person. We share this view with the Minister, naturally. But I would point out that, firstly, if the section is made retrospective to the date when the original Act came into operation, it means that one then uses an application for the registration of a birth signed by the guardian on behalf of the person concerned, at a time when he may have filled it in, not appreciating that this application would have the consequences which flow from the Population Registration Act. This, we think, is a situation which should not arise.

Which complications are you referring to?

If a man fills in a form for the registration of a birth at a time when he may not have the Population Registration Act in mind, or even at a time, for example, when this provision may not have existed …

[Inaudible.]

Perhaps the Minister could make his speech and then deal with the points I make. The criterion may have been different even in terms of the Population Registration Act at the time this form was filled in. But, apart from that, what is more important is that when a guardian fills in an application for registration of a birth, not expecting that this application will have the consequences flowing from the Population Registration Act, he may not be so careful in filling in this form as he would otherwise be. This is the danger which can arise from making this provision retrospective. I would point out to the Minister that this is “deemed to be …” Perhaps the hon. the Minister could just pay attention to this. In terms of this amendment such an application is deemed to be a furnishing of the particulars under section 9, even though it may have been done years ago when, as I say, the tests were different, for one thing, and also the person concerned, the father, may have filled in this form perhaps not as carefully as he would otherwise have done had he known that the consequences of the Population Registration Act may flow. It seems to us that if such a clause is to be re-introduced then it ought not to be made retrospective. Perhaps once again through you, Mr. Chairman, I may ask the Minister to give me his attention? We say to the hon. the Minister that if he wants to introduce such a clause he ought not to make it retrospective. In other words, if he so framed it that it will apply as from the date when this amending Bill is passed, there cannot be any serious objection, provided—and I add this proviso—that the application is made by the guardian on behalf of the child. I would point out that this need not follow, because an application for registration may be made by a midwife or by other persons. The clause, as it is framed, does not refer merely to an application filled in and signed by the guardian—it is so wide as to include any application. On the principle just stated by the Minister it would be unfair to have an application which is filled in by someone other than the guardian applying in these particular circumstances.

Perhaps the Minister would be good enough to let us know what his attitude is to the points that I have made in answer to his elucidation.

Mr. Chairman, I fear that in this case the hon. members for Umlazi and Musgrave are trying to anticipate troubles which do not even exist. This clause 3, which amends section 9 and which refers to the birth registration form, can only be used … Now I, too, want to ask the hon. member for Musgrave to pay attention to what I am saying, if he does not mind. It may be used only in a primary classification by the Secretary. It may be used only in the first classification. As in the case of all people, he classifies on the basis of the documents. It can never be used in reclassification or in an appeal for the simple reason that this is prohibited by paragraph (d) (ii) of the new section 1 (2). If the hon. member would look at the first page of the Bill, he would find that the amendment which we effected the first time does not allow this document to be used against a person unless that person himself has signed it. It may not be used if his guardian, for example, has signed it—he must have signed it himself. In the case of an infant, of course, it is impossible that he himself could have signed it. Consequently that form can never be used against him except in the primary classification. If one day he wanted to appeal or call for a reclassification, he could produce that form only as evidence in his interest but never against him. There is therefore absolutely no danger that this clause can be abused in any way whatsoever.

I cannot quite follow the reasoning of the hon. member for Prinshof as to the necessity for this being introduced into the Act at all. As he has correctly indicated, this particular registration in terms of Act No. 81 of 1963, in the case firstly of an illegitimate child, does not give the father’s name on the register. In the case of a newborn child found abandoned, some court official after an inquiry must fill in this form. It goes further. In the case of a normal birth the father might fill it in, or even the occupier of the house. It does not have to be filled in by a parent. My objection to the clause is simply this, that even though in terms of the amendment to clause 1, as the hon. member for Prinshof has stated, this cannot be used in evidence, it is an absolutely worthless document unless it happens to be signed by the guardian of the child. It is a worthless document even on which to start an investigation. For those reasons I am opposed to the clause being introduced into the Act at all, because it is of no value unless signed by the guardian. If the hon. member for Prinshof had been consequential after his first amendment and had said that in the event of this certificate having been completed by the guardian it should apply, there would perhaps have been some value to it, but at the moment it is of no value at all because of the different persons who might supply this information correctly or otherwise to the Registrar of Births.

It so happens that in respect of persons who were born after the 1951 census and who were therefore not included in the census there is actually no basis on which they may be included in the register, because the 1951 census formed the basis for the compilation of the register in respect of persons who had been born by then. But since then every person born subsequent to the census has also been classified and included in the register. [Interjection.] That is where the hon. member for Green Point is off the mark. A person is not classified at 16; he may then apply for his identity card. The point he fails to grasp is that any person is registered at birth, and since 1951 it has always happened that because there is no other basis for information for registration the Secretary had to prescribe a certain form on which certain particulars could be obtained. What has since happened in practice was that the birth certificate was accepted. That is normal practice. If the birth certificate is not correct, if the doctor or a relative completed it and thought the parents were non-whites and said that the child was “mixed” or “gekleurd”, then the child was classified as such in the meantime; in other words, he was then recorded in the register as “Coloured”. But when the child is 16 years old, he applies for his identity card and then discovers that he is classified incorrectly. Then this person may go back to the Secretary and say that he has been classified incorrectly.

I also want to mention this. It has been said here that we are now going back to before the census, before the Act was passed in 1950. But I want to tell the hon. member this. Let us suppose parents of mixed descent, who in 1950, before the 1951 census, were still accepted as non-Whites or Coloureds but whose race classification was in doubt and who at that stage still regarded themselves as Coloureds and then had a child whom they registered at birth as a Coloured or as “mixed”, through association or because they landed in a different vicinity were subsequently accepted as Whites, succeeded in being classified differently from the classification that applied in 1950, when they stated on the child’s birth certificate that it was a non-white or of “mixed” descent—if they have succeeded in being classified as Whites on the basis of acceptance, then this child who was registered as a Coloured in 1950, will have no difficulty. Under the provisions we are now introducing he will have no difficulties whatsoever, because all the Secretary has to do is to consult the register, when the child applies for his identity card, and to see how the father and the mother are classified. Because they have in the meantime both been classified or reclassified as Whites, the child will be classified like his parents without any further queries. There can therefore be no injustice to the child even if he was registered erroneously before the 1951 census because the parents did not know that it would subsequently be used against the child when he is classified, as hon. members on the opposite side are now arguing. If at any subsequent time the parents succeeded in obtaining classification as Whites, which they were not in 1950 or in 1951, it will now be to the advantage of the child. All this legislation provides is that the Secretary shall have some instrument to keep his register up to date when a child is born, and all the legislation asks for is that the information he has to use shall be that registered under the Births, Marriages and Deaths Registration Act. That is all.

Clause 3 put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: B. J. van der Walt and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Clause accordingly agreed to.

Clause 4:

I rise firstly to move the amendment which appears on the Order Paper in the name of Mr. M. L. Mitchell—

To add the following proviso at the end of subsection (4) of the proposed section 11:

The object of this amendment is to preserve those third-party objections which have already been lodged with the secretary. If this amendment is not accepted, the effect will be that as soon as this amending Bill becomes law, any third party objections which have been made but which have not yet been disposed of will automatically fall away. We think this is quite unfair and unjust because many of these people will have incurred considerable legal expense. They were perfectly justified in doing so in terms of the law as it stood at the time when they made their application and possibly proceeded to the stage of a hearing. We suggest that it would be very unfair to the persons concerned to cause these applications to lapse. Sir, perhaps I should say something at this stage about the allegations which have been made by the hon. Minister himself and by certain hon. members, particularly the hon. member for Parow, about these third-party objections.

It has been suggested that there has been something sinister about the use that has been made of third-party objections. It has been suggested that there has been abuse and it has been suggested that the person concerned may well have been satisfied with his classification and that some third-party has come forward and lodged an objection. Sir, I think the hon. the Minister, and certainly the hon. member for Parow, who has had experience of these matters, will know that this is quite incorrect. There is nothing sinister about these things. I think in 99 cases out of a 100 these objections have been made at the instance of the person affected, and they have been made by third parties because the time for appeal on the part of the person concerned has lapsed. He has only 60 days in terms of the Act and once that period has expired and the hon. the Minister is not prepared to extend it, as he is permitted to do but only within a further period of a year, then there is nothing the person concerned can do. It is in these circumstances that the third-party procedure has been resorted to. I emphasize this to show that there has been nothing sinister about this, nor has there been any abuse of the processes permitted by the law, and that being the case, it would be grossly unfair, in our submission, to prevent third-party applications which have already been lodged and which are in order from being heard and going through the normal process.

Sir, while I am on my feet, I would like to deal with certain other aspects of this clause to which we object. I refer firstly to the old subsection (7) on page 8 which now becomes subsection (6). You will notice Sir, that it is proposed to delete the words “including the secretary”. In other words, this clause in its amended form will make the decision of the board final and binding upon all persons but, as it appears to us, not on the secretary because these words are to be deleted. We would like to have clarification as regards what is intended by this proposed amendment. We will deal with the matter further when we have had the matter clarified. The new section 11 (7) reads: “The division of the said Supreme Court to which appeal is made may confirm, vary or set aside the decision of the board …. The words “shall inquire into and consider the matter and shall” are to be deleted. Here again we would like clarification because it seems to us that the effect of the deletion of these words will be to narrow down and restrict some of the powers which the Supreme Court now has. Particularly in the light of previous arguments by the hon. member for Odendaalsrus and the hon. member for Prinshof who were at pains to point out the powers of appeal or the powers given under appeal, we can see no justification whatsoever for restricting in any way the powers of the Supreme Court on appeal. We should like to know what is intended by this amendment and particularly if it is, as we believe it to be, a restriction of the Appeal Court’s powers, we will certainly oppose this part of the clause as well.

I should like to make one final point. The new subsection (2) gives a minor the power to object against his classification. No period is laid down in this clause within which a minor must object. It is not stated when he must make this objection and without some such clarification we think that the clause will be difficult to put into practice. For example, must the minor object when he hears about it whilst still a minor? Surely that cannot be the intention. Surely the intention is that he will have the power to make this objection as soon as he hears of it after he becomes a major. If that is not what the Government has in mind, surely some period should be laid down after the minor reaches majority. These are the points which I should like to draw to the hon. the Minister’s attention at this stage. We would be glad to have his views on these matters and then we can proceed to debate the clause further.

Mr. Chairman, first of all I should just like to try and reply to the question which the hon. member raised in regard to the Secretary. The effect of this new amendment, i.e. the omission of the words “including the Secretary”, means that the Secretary will also be able to appeal. That is all it means. It does not mean that the Secretary is not bound by the classification made by the Board. It means that it is not finally binding on the Secretary now and that he also has the right to appeal. That is all that is meant by the new subsection (6).

As far as the new subsection (7) is concerned, to which the hon. member also referred, which omits the words “shall inquire into and consider the matter and shall”, I want to say that you will recall that on a previous occasion, I think it was in the May case, the Judge ruled that as a result of the fact that those words were contained in the Act, it actually meant that the Supreme Court then did precisely what the Appeal Board had done in regard to re-investigations. In other words, the Supreme Court has, as a result of those words, appropriated the same function as that which the Appeal Board had. Subsequently the Supreme Court had precisely the same investigation as the Appeal Board had previously had. What actually happened there, or could have happened there, was the following. An applicant was dissatisfied with the Appeal Board or its findings. He appeared before the Appeal Board with a quarter of his evidence. He did not produce all, but only part, of his evidence. He heard all the evidence of the Appeal Board and then appealed to the Supreme Court. He then went to the Supreme Court, and because the Supreme Court was not a true court of appeal in respect of the Appeal Board, he could lead his evidence again and would then introduce the additional evidence. In some cases they led evidence of association after the date of appeal to the Appeal Board. Hon. members are aware of that. In other words, they appeared before the Supreme Court and said: “Even if we were still Coloured at that stage, we have in the meantime broken our Coloured association. Now we are White.” Then the Supreme Court did not become a court of appeal in respect of the Appeal Board but a court of first instance and the entire case was heard again and then the person was declared White. Of course that was never the intention of the legislature. The intention of the legislature was that the Supreme Court should be a true court of appeal in respect of the Appeal Board. The omission of those words will result in the Supreme Court no longer being able to hear additional evidence unless that evidence could not be led before the Appeal Board. You know the regulations in regard to additional evidence on appeal. Now the Appeal Court will have to decide the case simply and solely on the record of the Appeal Board. In other words, the Supreme Court is in reality becoming a court of appeal against the Appeal Board, as was the legislature’s intention.

Mr. Chairman, I was not surprised to hear the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) admit that the third-party applications were used for the sole purpose of circumventing the definite time limit of the Act. That is what actually happened, and the hon. member for Durban (Musgrave) has admitted it. He said that that was the case. Legally the person could do so, but it was never the intention of the legislator that he should be able to do so in that way; otherwise the legislator would never have included that time limit in respect of appeals. Now the legislator is taking steps to prevent this and is stating his intention to return to the actual intention, i.e. that a person should have a certain period of time in which he may appeal. After that he is no longer able to appeal. It is quite fair—in fact, there is a fixed period of time for all appeals. After all, one cannot allow an unspecified period of time for appeals. In the Sithole case a person brought in an appeal against the classification board 4 1/2 years after the classification took place, and the Court condoned it. The only difference is that a person will, in terms of this legislation with which we are now dealing, have to adduce reasons for the lateness of his appeal and for the court having to condone a late appeal. Such reasons will also have to be logical ones. But the court still has the right to condone such an appeal—provided of course the person in question can furnish good reasons as to why he did not appeal within the prescribed time limit.

I say again that it seems strange to me that hon. members on the opposite side are so eager now to retain appeals by third parties, particularly in view of the fact that they have throughout, since 1950, opposed them—and quite rightly so in my humble opinion. It opened the door for people to furnish information—even a person who wanted to act with malicious intent could do so and could even institute a reclassification. In fact, in his malicious intent he could even go so far as to take the Secretary on appeal to the board and even to the Supreme Court. I want to remind hon. members of what General Smuts said about this particular clause in 1950. On 8th March, 1950 (see Hansard, vol. 71, col. 2527) he said—

I want to ask hon. members on the opposite side whether they now want to go against this argument of General Smuts. There is a measure of truth in what General Smuts said here because it is possible that a person may with malicious intent furnish certain information to the Secretary. He may still do so even now, but what happens then? Before this amending legislation he was able to approach the Secretary and ask for a reclassification of Mr. A, and if the Secretary were then to have said to him that he, i.e. the Secretary, was of the opinion that his intention was malicious, the objector could have said that he was going to take the Secretary on appeal. He could appeal to the court and burden the person concerned with endless difficulty, costs and grief. What is the position going to be under the Bill which we are now dealing with? If a person furnishes malicious information to the Secretary, the Secretary has the discretion to say that he does not accept it and that it has already been decided in principle that the case in question has been dealt with. After that the objector can do nothing. If he wants to go to all that trouble and expense he can of course appeal against the Secretary to the Supreme Court. He can then go and state to the Supreme Court that in his opinion the Secretary is acting mala fides. The Supreme Court will then ask him to prove first that the Secretary did not exercise his discretion properly. This is a tremendous onus of proof resting on such an objector. You see therefore that with the disappearance of objections by third parties, persons who want to act maliciously are being totally disarmed. At the same time the door is still being left open for the Secretary to reclassify a legitimate case, a case which must be classified again. [Time expired.]

I follow what the hon. member means when he says that the effect of the deletion proposed in subsection (7) will mean that the Supreme Court will now be faced with a record, an appeal record, on which it will then have to adjudicate the correctness or otherwise of the decision of the board. However, one thing the hon. member overlooks is that in this Bill there are certain factors which no record can correctly reduce to writing. I should like the hon. member to tell me, for instance, how the Supreme Court can have conveyed to it the findings of the board on factors such as habit, education, deportment, speech and others—these are indefinable matters and invalidate the argument of the hon. member that we can now have an objective appeal to the Supreme Court. Perhaps the hon. member would like to elaborate on how one could convey to the Supreme Court these particular aspects relating to the person whose classification is under consideration. The hon. member also referred to third-party objections and to the use to which they were put. As the hon. member for Musgrave correctly pointed out, this procedure was used when the time limits had expired—it was used in a number of cases. I want to tell the hon. member for Prinshof that this became necessary because there were many cases of people who found themselves classified as Coloureds. It came as a shock to them. These are people who might have lived away from their families for a number of years. I know of two young people from an orphanage now living in Sea Point. They were all along accepted as White but all of a sudden they received classification cards classifying them as Coloureds. They put these cards into a drawer not knowing what to do about it. It was only last year, when it was indicated that it would be compulsory for people to carry identification cards, that these two consulted an adviser. They then found that the only way in which they could bring their case forward for reconsideration was by means of a third-party objector. So they went to their employer who agreed to act as an objector and so the matter was dealt with that way.

I now want to come to the application of this legislation to pending cases. First of all, I should like to tell the hon. the Minister that at first I had my reservations about the speed at which pending cases would be dealt with. There is no doubt that these cases have been going forward to the board and have been dealt with with some speed. According to what the hon. the Minister told us in 1966 there were 268 objections for reference to the Race Classification Board; by the end of the year 125 of them had been disposed of or had been referred to the board, leaving a small balance of 123. The board itself dealt with 144 cases during that year and by the end of December had disposed of all but 25. That means that at the end of December there were, according to the Minister’s own figure, a maximum number of 148 cases pending. I suppose in the interim period a large number of these, I should think, have also been disposed of and finalized by the board. I want to ask the Minister whether he is satisfied that it would be the correct thing to make, first of all, the objections which were lodged validly prior to this Bill, invalid retrospectively—in other words, that they would lapse. Moreover would it be fair to have persons whose cases were before the board or before the department prior to this Bill, being debarred of being treated in the same way as persons whose cases have already been heard? Because the position is this, as the hon. the Minister has conceded. Every one of these 119 cases that have been disposed of by the classification board cannot be re-opened. Those persons cannot be reclassified. It seems unfortunate and an injustice that other people whose objections and appeals have been lodged were denied an opportunity of being subjected to the same tests for classification purposes. I feel that if all these cases were taken on review there might be another approach to this particular problem. I think that the Minister will agree with me also—and I think his Department will confirm what I say—that the cases have not gone through to the classification board in chronological order according to the dates on which the objections were lodged. Some of these cases have been under investigation. they have been held over for some time. Some of them have been held over for more than 12 months while they have been departmentally investigated before they have gone to the classification appeal board. For that reason, and supporting the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave, I wish to move the following amendment—

In other words, those persons whose cases were pending when this legislation came before Parliament should all be treated in the same way. Those who were lucky enough to have their names “drawn” first, those who had the “luck of the draw” one might almost say, will be classified on a certain basis, whilst those who were not fortunate enough to have their cases referred to the board timeously, or whose cases the board has not been able to dispose of, will be dealt with in another way which will, I think, lead to some injustice. The number of cases which I have referred to—the figures which he gave to me in reply to questions—are very small. I hope that the Minister will concede that there is a very good reason for all pending cases being disposed of in the same way and being subject to the same tests. For those reasons the amendments have been moved by the hon. member for Musgrave and myself limiting it to those objections that were in by the 31st March of this year. They should be dealt with by having the same tests applied to them, the same rules observed and the same procedure followed. In this way flesh will not be made of one and fowl of the other.

Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to deal with the matter of pending cases because obviously that is a policy matter which the Minister will himself deal with. I want to try to answer the question that was put to me by the hon. member for Green Point, when he made the statement that certain factors cannot be conveyed to an appeal court, for example, habits, speech, etc. I disagree with the hon. member there. In each case the chairman of the board—and the hon. member must not forget that the chairman of the board is a Judge of the Supreme Court …

Or a magistrate.

Or a magistrate—that is fair enough. I think that both these gentlemen are good enough. But there will be a finding on each one of these factors. Let us take the factors of habit and speech for example. The chairman would say that he finds, as far as habits are concerned—and his finding is substantiated by page so and so of the record —that the person concerned has the habits of a Coloured person. There will be specific findings in regard to all those factors and those findings will be based on evidence. It is nothing to be surprised about. If one reads the cases one finds that it is exactly the same sort of evidence that is presented day after day before the classification board. This evidence has simply been summarized. The factors which the people bring to the board in support of their contention that they should be White are the very factors that have been taken out of various records and inserted in the Act. On each one of these factors there will be a finding and each of these findings will be based on evidence. That evidence will be on record, and the Supreme Court will be able to test whether the finding of the board is correct in terms of the evidence. Hon. members will remember that as the Act reads at the moment, the first test is that of appearance. Hon. members will also remember from all the court cases that that test must be made first. In other words, no evidence must be led, the applicant must come before the board and the board must then make a finding as to whether the person is obviously White or obviously Coloured or whatever the case may be. Now the position is reversed. In terms of clause 1 of this Bill the question of appearance, which is still one of the factors to be considered, will be determined after the evidence, and not before. That will be in line with what was said by Mr. Justice Snyman who actually said that he had found a certain person to be White on a simple appearance test but he may have found differently had he heard the evidence first. In other words, one must see the picture globally. The person concerned hears the evidence, he looks at the person and then he makes a finding, and that finding can be tested by the Supreme Court. Because, Sir, it is a finding based on fact.

The Supreme Court cannot look at a person.

No, the Supreme Court cannot, but it can look at the evidence and the finding is based on the evidence. The chairman will say: “This person to me is obviously a European in appearance” or “he is a non-White in appearance” whatever the case may be, and he is going to say furthermore that the evidence indicates the following factors. They will be findings of fact which the Supreme Court can test. In other words, this will be a proper appeal, the very same as one from the magistrate’s court which one has at the moment. The magistrate always makes a finding on appearance, on demeanour—the hon. member for Green Point knows that. A magistrate might say: “I do not believe this witness because he looks like a liar to me,” and the court of appeal deals with cases of that nature every day. They have demeanour before them on the record. Is that not so? The magistrate might say: “The witness looked shifty, he looked down, he looked to one side, he did not look me in the eye when I asked him the question …” The magistrate tells the Supreme Court what the position is. Exactly the same position obtains here. The Supreme Court is told what one sees, and the final finding whether the man is obviously a white person, or as the case may be, is based on all these factors which are all findings of fact based on evidence.

The hon. member for Green Point again mentioned the time limit for appeals. The time limit for appeal is dealt with in Sithole’s case, the headnote of which reads as follows—

This case was very well argued and if one looks at the judgment one will find it to be a complete judgment on the particular point of condonation. I have no doubt that this case is going to be followed in the Cape and Natal and all the other divisions. I have no doubt about that. I do not think that a third party appeal is necessary. The only difference between a third party appeal and an application for condonation is as follows: In the case of a third party appeal there is an automatic right to a reclassification whereas in an application for condonation reasons must be given why the applicant is so late. Obviously the reasons given will be taken into account when the decision is taken whether to grant condonation or not. But it does not close the doors of the appeal court—the doors are wide open.

In the course of what I say I shall deal with some of the remarks of the hon. member for Prinshof. In the first place, we dislike this new section 11 (7), the old section 11 (8), because it limits very greatly the right of the aggrieved person, the objector, to have a full hearing by the Supreme Court. We like the fact that it has been possible for an aggrieved person to have, as it were, a rehearing before the Supreme Court.

Then what is the sense of having the board?

The same sense that it had when the Act was passed in its initial form. It was well known to all concerned that the board was introduced with this broad right of appeal to the Supreme Court. I have no doubt that it was couched in this form because these are delicate matters and the Government wished to be extremely fair to any person classified under the old Act. I will deal with the reason advanced by the hon. member for Prinshof soon, but it seems to me there is no sufficient reason to depart from that generous approach which was made when this broad right of appeal was given to an aggrieved person. The Minister himself has said that he has no fault to find with the actions of the Supreme Court in hearing appeals. The hon. member for Prinshof has argued that this more generous right of appeal to the Supreme Court should be cut down, because he says the aggrieved person has tended not to put his whole case forward at the outset, but to hold back. I do not know whether the hon. member has facts to substantiate that.

I say that can be one of the reasons.

It could conceivably be, but this, of course, would be entirely against the code of attorneys and advocates, to behave in this way. I cannot believe that it will happen in any great measure of cases because it would be entirely unprofessional and I do not believe that in the various cases which have gone on appeal to the Supreme Court there can be more than one or two in this category. I really believe that we must not take away what was once a generous right of appeal and reduce it on the basis of what seems to me a very flimsy suggestion. So we cannot but be opposed to this cutting down of his right of appeal.

I should like to get back to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave. I am glad that the hon. member for Prinshof who, like all of us, is doing his best to improve this clause, had no argument to oppose to that of the hon. member for Musgrave. Presumably by silence we may take some heart that he concedes the fairness of accepting this amendment. It is not as if the argument can be laid at our door that this will create a vast number of reclassifications. The hon. member for Green Point has mentioned the numbers involved. There cannot be more than 100 or so people who have already lodged their objections and have their proceedings under way for an appeal on the basis of this third party objection. It would certainly, I suggest, be an injustice to those aggrieved persons that this right should be summarily cut away by a retrospective provision. As I say, I take heart from the fact that the hon. member for Prinshof in no way attempted to refute the argument that the Minister himself must have a soft heart in this respect. With these words I would again commend the amendment of the hon. member for Musgrave to the Minister and hope that he will give us an indication that he can see his way clear to accepting it.

I rise to support the amendments of both the hon. members for Musgrave and Green Point, because taken together, as has already been pointed out, these will ensure that those cases which are already before the court shall go through in the normal way, under the conditions pertaining when they were lodged. If they are not allowed to do that, certain of them will be automatically swept away by the provisions of the new clause 11 (1). Some of them will have lapsed because the period of a year will have gone by. So the objector or the person affected will no longer be in a position, as I see it, to re-lodge an objection. In other words, it will be automatically rubbed out by the lapse of time, because he cannot lodge this more than one year afterwards, and in many cases that period will have lapsed, from the time when it became known to him. In addition to that, others will automatically fall away by the new provisions of clause 2, under which the classification becomes automatic, whereas under the existing legislation it is not automatic. I think on those grounds alone the Minister should accept these two amendments, which together will ensure justice being done in the case of these people whose objections have already been lodged by 31st March.

Now I want to deal with another aspect of this clause. It concerns clause 5 (a) and (b).

Under the new clause 5, if there is an objector, if the person whom the Secretary wishes to reclassify objects, then the Secretary must refer it to the Board for its decision. In these cases a minor or his guardian can do this for him; they can ensure that it comes before the Board for hearing. But in (b) it specifically provides now that in any proceedings before a board any relevant form and return referred to in section 3 or 9 of the Act—that is the census form and other information available to the Registrar, and in the case of section 9 it is the information supplied by the guardian or by the person himself, or under the new clause 3 it will be the birth certificate—and any relevant report referred to in section 12 and any relevant application for an indentity card shall be admitted as evidence. If you read that it is quite simple. The Board will take into account in determining a person’s race classification, factors which have not been supplied by that person himself, and those will help them to come to a decision. But if you look a little further down in the new clause 7, you will see, Sir, that it says—

Before it read “shall inquire into and consider the matter and shall confirm, etc.” The operative words which are now being removed are “shall inquire into and consider the matter”. Now I am not a lawyer, but reading this clause 1 take it this means that no new evidence will be admitted, because the court is no longer allowed to inquire into and consider the matter. It can only consider what is laid before it as the result of the findings of the Board. The Board is going to make its decision on evidence which at present is not admissible as evidence in a court. In other words, this is a way of getting in through the back door evidence which the court will not accept at the moment; because to the best of my knowledge and belief—and this was raised in the Second Reading by the hon. member for Durban (North)—certain evidence contained in sections 3, 9 and 12 is not admissible at present in the Supreme Court. Yet now we are taking steps here first of all to debar the court from itself inquiring into the circumstances of the classification, or in other words, having to come to its decision on the same evidence which was available to the Board, evidence of which the Supreme Court at the moment will not take cognizance. I think this is a terrible thing to do, to ask this House to defeat, in my estimation as a non-legal man, the process of justice. I believe that is what we are doing.

Nonsense!

It is not nonsense, because the court will not consider this evidence at the moment, but here we force them to admit it. The hon. member for Prinshof nods his head affirmatively, and he said it now makes the court consider this evidence. Let the Minister reply to this. If what I say is correct, I think the Minister must do something about it. I think it is terrible of him to come here and impose conditions such as this upon the courts of law, which are held in such high esteem, and make them accept stuff like this through the back door when it cannot ever have been brought in by the front door. I want to know what the Minister has to say about it.

I just want to reply to the one point made by the hon. member for Umlazi. Nobody is trying to push any evidence in through the back door which is not admissible. A board is not a court of law; a board can have as wide powers as a court of law. The position here is that normally a form that has been filled by certain people cannot be presented as evidence unless the person who filled the form in is there to identify it. All this Bill does is to make those forms available to the board. If the signatures or the contents are denied, those forms will be thrown out, but they are now available and you do not have to call anyone to identify the form; it is just automatically put in. That is all that happens. But nothing that is in that form against an applicant can be used against him unless he signed the form himself. [Interjection.] But of course. The contents of the form are simply put in as evidence of what is in the form, but if it is against the applicant it cannot be used because this Bill specifically states that.

Where does it say that?

Read clause 1 (2) (d) (ii). Nothing can be held against him which he did not sign himself. But you do not have to identify all the forms. You simply put the form before the board, and it is not evidence that comes in through the back door at all. It is just simply the information which was used for the primary classification. It is the normal information that the Secretary uses when he makes his first classification. You have to start somewhere before the board. The secretary must come before the board and say: “These are the forms I used and that is why I classified the man as I did.” That is why the forms are admissible, but they are not admissible as evidence against the man. The position is exactly the same as in the Supreme Court. There is no intention here to get evidence before the board that you could not adduce before a court. It is quite unfair to say that the court’s powers are being curtailed in hearing the appeal. It is not a hearing before the court; it is a simple appeal before the court; the hearing takes place before the board. In terms of the Act as it now reads, without the passing of this Bill, there are virtually two classification boards. You have the Classifications Board and then you can go to the Supreme Court and then you have another classifications board. The right of the Supreme Court to be a classifications board is now being taken away; it is now becoming what it should be, and that is a court of appeal against the decision of the Classifications Board.

One thing that is becoming perfectly clear is that the proposed amendment to subsection (7) is in fact a restriction of the appeal court’s powers. This is perfectly clear from what the hon. member for Prinshof has said on two occasions, and he has now repeated it. It is all very well for the hon. member for Prinshof to say that they are now turning the appeal into what it ought to have been in the first place, but that begs the question. Why ought it to have been such an appeal court in the first place? On the contrary, in a matter of such vital importance as the classification of a person, which may affect not only his whole life but the lives of his children and children’s children for generations to come in terms of the amendments which are to be introduced because the parentage now becomes important in the classification of a child, surely if the Government is really concerned to do justice to the individual then it ought to give the appeal court the widest powers to look into the position and it certainly ought not to be restricting the appeal court’s powers as it now does.

Your argument will also apply then to criminal appeals?

Sir, the hon. member must not drag red herrings across the trail. The hon. member says that my argument will now apply to criminal appeals as well. Sir, that is nonsense. The two are non sequiturs. It does not follow, because I put forward an argument of this sort in relation to race classifications, that this has to apply to all criminal appeals. There is no logic in that at all. In any event, I make the specific point that the arguments which I now advance in opposition to curtailing the powers of appeal in this legislation do not need to apply in the case of criminal appeals; the two are quite different. In any event, the position did not apply before. Why therefore should the hon. member for Prinshof say that my argument means that the same must apply to criminal appeals? He knows very well that in criminal appeals the appeal court did not have the power which it now has in terms of subsection (7) as it stands at present. The appeal court had a wider power, and what we want to know is why the Government now wishes to restrict this power by deleting the words “shall inquire into and consider the matter”. We want to know why the Government wishes to restrict the power of the appeal court. The hon. member for Prinshof gave a reason but it is a most unsatisfactory and unconvincing one. The reason given by the hon. member is that some people have abused this wider power because they held back evidence which they had when they came before the board and then gave that evidence for the first time when they came before the appeal court. I challenge the hon. member for Prinshof to show in what cases this has happened.

I say it can be abused.

Of course, it can be abused, but unless the hon. member for Prinshof can show that it has been abused there is no justification for restricting the powers of the appeal court. There is every reason why there should be a wider appeal than is envisaged in normal appeals; there is every reason why it should be wider because so many factors come into race classification which it is difficult to reduce to writing. It is only the trier of fact who can appreciate all these things. It is all very well for the hon. member for Prinshof to say that the Classification Board will be able to make a note of its findings on habit, on demeanour, education and all the other things which are now to be taken into account, but I think the hon. member for Prinshof, as a legal man, would be the first to concede that it is impossible to put an appeal court in precisely the same position as the court hearing the matter. It is all very well to make findings of this sort on the record and then to say that the appeal court can check from the record to see whether the findings are justified. But, Sir, there is no definition in this Bill as to what habits will justify an appeal board in classifying a man as Coloured and what habits will justify them in classifying the man as white. Similarly there are no definitions of “speech”, “deportment” and “demeanour”. What finding is the Classification Board going to make in regard to these matters? In what way can a Classification Board be of any help to the appeal court? Sir, it cannot happen and therefore it is doubly important, particularly in view of the amendments which are being introduced in this amending Bill that the appeal court should have the power itself to inquire into and consider the matter fully because otherwise justice cannot be done to the individuals concerned. Sir, I do hope that the Minister will rise and tell us what his attitude is to the amendments which I moved and which the hon. member for Green Point moved? We are limited in the number of times we can speak and if the Minister will not accept our amendments we would like to be able to deal with his arguments.

There is one other matter that I want to deal with in answer to the hon. member for Prinshof. The hon. member referred to the case of Sithole and he pointed out that in that case even a delay of four and a half years was allowed. Sir, I think if he looks at the date of that case, he will find that that case was heard before this section was amended, and I would point out that this is now to be further amended to read: “Within 30 days or such longer period, not exceeding one year, as the Minister may allow, after the said classification became known to him, but in no circumstances later”. The words which are being inserted are “but in no circumstances later”. Clearly the object of this amendment is to tell the court that under no circumstances may an objection be made after a period of one year. The judgment in Sithole’s case can no longer apply therefore. I do hope that the hon. the Minister will come into the debate and tell us what his attitude is to the amendments.

Apparently the hon. member for Musgrave is under the impression that he is able to stipulate when one must reply to or enter the debate. The hon. member must not adopt that attitude. There are hon. members on that side who are his senior and who are more entitled to ask me to enter the debate at a certain stage. But the hon. member has a habit of telling me each time when he rises that I must rise and reply. I find it a little bit annoying.

The hon. member put a few questions, and in that connection he quoted certain legal arguments to which the hon. member for Prinshof replied fully and much more adequately than I could have done. We are dealing here with two amendments, one moved by the hon. member for Musgrave and one which appears on the Order Paper in the name of Mr. M. L. Mitchell; there is also one moved by the hon. member for Green Point.

The two amendments are closely allied to one another. Let us come now to clause 4. Fundamentally this clause deals with the abolition of third party objections. Now, what is a third party objection? In terms of this Bill, just as it is the case in terms of the existing legislation, any person has the right to appeal against his classification within a fixed period of time. He has the right to make an appeal within 30 days after he became aware of his classification, or within a year of that date, after his having failed to give notice of an appeal has been condoned by the Minister. He may then ask for reclassification, and if he is not satisfied then he has the right to give notice of appeal. I am mentioning this because I want to put an end to this misrepresentation that we are depriving people of their just rights; that is not so. But what is a third party objection? If the person who has been classified neglects to exercise his rights within the fixed period, then another man may on his behalf adduce evidence at any time and ask that the person’s classification be reconsidered by the Classification Board. If he is dissatisfied with the classification of the Classification Board then, in terms of the existing Act, he can go to court. Hon. members have asked why we want to restrict the jurisdiction of the court, as they have put it. The reason is this: The original intention of the legislator was that the appeal to the Supreme Court would be an appeal from the Classification Board and that the Supreme Court would not be a court of inquiry. The intention was that the Supreme Court would be a court of appeal and that is what we now want to make it, and we are doing so for good reasons. It will be of no avail to argue …

What are the

reasons?

We have decided that it was within the framework of the intention of the legislator that the Supreme Court would be a court of appeal and not a court of inquiry. The question was put here whether we were able to mention cases where courts had given erroneous decisions. I maintain that there are in fact cases where the court, in terms of the present legislation, had to base its findings on data and evidence which had not been before the boards. If that evidence had been adduced before the boards those boards may perhaps have arrived at a decision under the present Act, which the court subsequently did on appeal because a re-investigation produced new evidence, which in turn brought discredit upon the functioning of the boards or undermined our opinion of them. It can happen and it did happen—the loopholes are wide open, and do not think that there are not people who want to make use of those loopholes, despite the code which the hon. member for Pinelands spoke about. We are all civilized people and each of us subscribes to a specific code of morality and principles and we adhere to that code as closely as possible. But is it always possible? Legal men, Judges and jurists are also human, and for that reason also fallible, as we are. Of course I am not saying that they are making themselves guilty of immoral conduct here, but the opening is there for a person to lead evidence in court, further evidence which he did not lead when his application was before the board. In terms of the Act as it stands at present the court had to take cognizance of that evidence, and this additional evidence could have a decisive influence on the finding of the court. That is not what we want. Third party objections have consistently been used, without exception, to extort a higher classification on the grounds of acceptance or other factors, completely legal factors, but factors which were in no way valid when the person in question had originally been classified. At that stage they had been satisfied with their classification, but even if they had not been satisfied they nevertheless felt they did not have a chance, under existing circumstances, to obtain a reclassification. But if one waited a few years, things could change, you could prove that your classification on the grounds not always of acceptance, but also of association, would have to be different from your original classification. I have said before, and I want to repeat it now, that if there is one thing which, within the bounds of possibility, will put an end to reclassifications, then it is this proposed abolition in toto of objections on the part of third parties. Here we are now abolishing such objections to the court therefore, but fundamentally third parties who want to make objections still have the formal right to bring those objections to the knowledge of the Secretary. This right still exists. Because I think that this is, or can be, only fair and just in many meritorious cases, the power of the Secretary is being extended. He is being given the right to refer those objections to the board if he has doubts of his ability to see that justice is done. For that reason the board’s decision is final as far as third party objections are concerned. These are not objections which are instituted after the fixed date, whether the period of 30 days or one year, as provided in the Act. That is why I cannot accept ether one of the two amendments, and is also the reason for the hon. member for Green Point arguing in the way he did. He wants those third party objections which have already been lodged with the Secretary, and which have not yet been referred to the board—I think it is the amendment by the hon. member for Musgrave—to be regarded as valid objections. Valid objections, as I understand it in the amendment and in the argumentation in respect of the amendment by hon. members on the opposite side, in my opinion amount to valid objections in terms of the present Act, and they must be dealt with as such. This is something which the hon. member for Green Point has now made very apparent in his amendment. Those objections must be regarded as valid objections, and objections which have been timeously submitted, because they were lodged under the present legislation. The reason he gave for that is that it was unfair, because these people found out at a late stage that they could make third party objections. I cannot understand why they discovered at such a late stage that they could make third party objections. If it was as a result of the judgment of a court—I think the hon. member for Green Point said something like that—then I think that that judgment of the court to which he referred was made early in 1964. I have an idea that that is so. It has become absolutely clear, not only to one person, but to the world, that a good lawyer would always have seen the opening, but perhaps there was not reason enough to look so carefully for a little loophole, as was subsequently done. That is why they found the opening which they had never spotted previously. It is a lawyer’s work to do this and nobody takes it amiss of him.

Mr. Chairman, the judgment was in 1966. There are pending cases in respect of objections lodged in 1965.

My point is that if it is now being found legal that third party objections can be raised at any time, then the Act must have provided for that ever since it was promulgated, that is to say since 1962, or even before that. There was no reasonable reason why any legal man, or any person affected, did not make use of the facility of getting a third party to lodge an objection on his behalf, if he was late and did not comply with the provisions of the Act as far as the time limit is concerned. That is my argument.

*He is now asking me whether, out of humane and just considerations, I should not regard it in this light because the people have incurred costs and have drawn up a case which is now before the Secretary and is being investigated. Now I say that I cannot accept that, not for reasons of fairness, because one would then be able to put forward the same argument to imply that this clause is totally unfair. What about those who have considered the matter, but who have not yet done so and who will then, after this legislation has been passed, not be able to raise third party objections of that nature? Those persons who have already made third party objections and have been successful or unsuccessful, in other words, who have obtained or who have not obtained reclassification, but who have nevertheless availed themselves of that right and in respect of which the judgment has already been passed, fall into one category; those in regard to whom a judgment has not yet been passed, fall into a second category; those who have made no application at all, fall into a third category. If I were to take them into consideration I cannot for the life of me see why one cannot make the same appeal to fairness and humanity in respect of all three which one makes in respect of the one group only. In other words, I must deduce from that that the Opposition has a fundamental objection in principal to the fact that we are now abolishing third party objections. One of the reasons is that they maintain that we must put an end to reclassification, and that if we are now going to do away with third party objections, then we will never put an end to it, not in the foreseeable future nor ever. That is why I adhere very strictly and very strongly to this point because it underlies in principle and fundamentally the intention of the legislation, i.e. to improve this Act. It is not there to do people an unjustice, because the section, which they have objected to a moment ago, is still there. In terms of that section the Secretary may, if he becomes aware of the fact that a man has been classified wrongly, and he thinks there are grounds for doing so, reclassify him immediately, or send him to the appeal courts. Now that person still has the right of appeal, if he cannot for example obtain satisfaction from the Classification Board, as the hon. member for Prinshof put it very clearly. In my opinion the board will in future —hon. members and the public must follow this carefully—play a more important role, with the right which I am giving the Secretary to, if cases come to his attention, refer them to the board. Third party objections will in general not be summarily suppressed. He will have to reconsider a form of third party objection—in other words, they are not going to be the same kind of third party objections they were previously. They will have to submit their data, factual documents and reasons to the Secretary and on those reasons which they submit here the Secretary must judge, and so will the board. But they will form a judgment in terms of the new Act. As regards these objections which have been lodged and are with the Secretary, but have not yet been sent through, the position is as follows. Surely they have completed the work. Surely they have drawn up all the documents by now. Surely they know on what grounds they want to do so. If the persons themselves submit that evidence or factual documents which they want to submit to the board, to the Secretary, he can, if there are sufficient grounds in terms of this amending Act, revise them and, if he has to, refer them to the board.

I shall go further. If it is not clear enough then those people, to make certain that it will happen in that way, submit a request to the Secretary, with the inclusion of that factual data, and data which they wanted to use for third party objections before the Classification Board, and ask him for reclassification. On behalf of the Secretary, I want to promise them that he will go into those documents very thoroughly and form a judgment himself, and if not, he will refer them to the board.

In my Second Reading speech I also said that I was going to expand this enquiry organization of my Department in order to make it more possible for the boards to arrive at a truly objective, honest and correct judgment. We shall have to expand the boards in order to deal with those cases still awaiting to be dealt with as quickly as possible, because one does not want them to hang in the air unnecessarily. New ones coming in, from the persons themselves and the few third party objections, will, I expect, become less. Attention will be given to the few which do come in just as quickly as it is possible. The following objection was raised for my consideration, inter alia by the hon. member for Musgrave. He referred to the provision in this clause in terms of which a minor will now be able to make objections against his classification himself, and said that no time for doing so was being specified. The hon. member asked how long he would have to do so. If the hon. member reads the clause carefully he will see that where we are giving a minor this right now—and it is necessary for us to do so— there may be cases where he does not have a guardian, or where the guardian is no longer living, or that the guardian does not want to make objections on his behalf, and he is still a minor and wants to make objections against that classification. Then he can do so, but the period in which he can do so is also being specified. The period is being specified in subsection (1). It is precisely the same as for other people. He has precisely the same rights. The hon. member for Green Point asked whether I was satisfied that it is right for the objections of those who have made objections to lapse now in terms of the present Act, but not necessarily in toto, as has been explained, and under the new Act. The hon. member for Umlazi, who supported the amendment, said: There is a difference now. Third party objections were heard automatically. Now it is no longer automatic. I agree with him, but it is not the intention to make it so. We cannot change the intention; then I would not achieve the object which we have in regard to the Act as a whole. He stated that their chances were less favourable now. I find that a very interesting argument. If a third party objector had a better chance under the old Act then there must be loopholes in the present statutory provisions through which people who do not really belong to the one race group, for example the Whites, can filter into the white stream and become classified as Whites. Under the new provisions those people will no longer succeed in doing so. I hope that that is so, because I am not merely dealing with the personal factor, the human factor, the individual factor. I am also dealing with the population group factor, and seen as a whole, it means that the interests of one man cannot receive greater consideration than that of the community. That principle of the overal factor is actually the one which is being emphasized here. If the hon. member tells me that it will now be more difficult to be classified in another race group, a group in which the person does not really belong, and in which he should not really have been, then I am glad to learn, in advance from that, that this measure is an improvement on the present Act. I think that with this I have replied to all the points raised here.

Mr. Chairman, I firmly believe that the hearts of the hon. the Minister, of the Government and the Department are more generous than the Minister wants to give us to understand here. The Minister is rejecting the true amendments, and it seems to me that he is doing so on rather peculiar grounds. Actually he put forward two arguments to justify his rejection. The first was that he was quite opposed to the third party objections and that we should therefore get rid of them as soon as possible. Well, I think it amounts to that. The second reason which he put forward, was that the Secretary would still have the right to reconsider cases and perhaps to reclassify them. But I want to suggest that there is another principle at stake here. The principle is that these people had obtained an established right in terms of the Government’s own legislation, as it stands on the Statute Book to-day, to be classified as Whites, or as something else. That does not mean to say that if they are now being classified as Whites they are necessarily being wrongly classified. It simply means that as the Act reads at present, they are really Whites and have to be classified as such. Where we are dealing with such a small number of people—I do not believe that there can be more than a hundred or two hundred people—I feel that the hon. the Minister has a heart which is too generous to exclude those people and thereby violate a very important principle of our law, namely that legislation will not harm established rights in this way.

If I understand the Minister correctly he deduced from our amendments that we now feel that these people, possibly a hundred or two hundred of them, should definitely be reclassified and that their appeals will all succeed. That, however, is not the case. All that is implied in these amendments is that their appeals will take place in terms of the present Act and that they will be regarded as having been submitted in time for the purposes of the Act. Whether they succeed or not depends upon the provisions of the Act.

If they have strong cases nobody will be able to say that their applications for reclassification will not succeed under the new Act, even though they are late, because in their cases I am now making that exception.

The point is precisely that it is an old principle of our law. It is true that people may, as the hon. the Minister has also said, apply to the Secretary to be reclassified in terms of the new Act. However, we do not get away from the fact that their rights have already been affected; we do not get away from the fact that they are now going to be dealt with in terms of the new provisions. We are no longer arguing now about whether third party objections are right or wrong. In reality these type of objections created an opportunity to rectify injustices. There were many such objections. The hon. member for Prinshof spoke of how this institution is, as it were, being used in the wrong way. But many of the old institutions of the Roman Law had a particular origin, but with the passing of time the institutions have been used in another way to ensure that justice was done. Nobody wants to maintain now that justice was in fact not done. That is why I am once more making an appeal to the Minister, to the Government and the Department to see to it that justice is done and not to violate the principle of our law to which I have referred.

Mr. Chairman, I must say that I am disappointed with the attitude which was adopted by the hon. Minister in regard to these amendments. I think that the matter might be put in clearer perspective. I have already mentioned that as a result of appeals 108 persons were able to satisfy the board that they were white people entitled to be accepted in the white community of this country of ours. The Minister seemed to indicate that this crop of third-party appeals had come forward because of some judgment of the Supreme Court. I would remind the Minister that in 1965 or 1966—I am not sure of the date although I think it was in 1966—his predecessor gave notice that August, 1966, would be zero hour in which everybody should have their classifications finalized and have identity cards. As a result of that many persons came forward to try and have their classification cleared up. Their time limits had expired and the only way in which they could have their cases heard was by means of third-party objections. What has happened? One half of the appellants in 1966 were given the opportunity of satisfying an independent tribunal, a reclassification board, that they were white people and entitled to form part of our white community in South Africa. The Minister says that the remaining half can go back to the Secretary for him to have a look at their cases. Those whom he thinks should be reclassified he can reclassify or he might send them to the board. I think that these cases are before the board because the Secretary himself did not feel that he could reclassify, just as the successful ones were there. I am not saying that the Secretary was wrong. In the case of a classification it is a matter of opinion. Whereas the Secretary, in applying the tests to see whether a person is White or Coloured, came to certain conclusions, the classification board consisting of three persons did not come to the same conclusions.

By way of interjection may I just remind you that objections from third parties were never, I would say. gone into by the Secretary himself for reclassification purposes. They were sent to the board.

Yes, I thank the Minister for drawing my attention to that. I think that that was the ruling that the Minister’s law advisers gave, namely that he as the Minister should not even deal with the matter but that cases had to go to the classification board if there were formal objections by a third party. It does seem to me, if one looks at these persons with pending appeals, that we have a population of 16 million of whom 3½ million are White and 1½ million Coloured. Can one say that a deep, vital principle will be violated if 120 people are not allowed to complete their cases, which are pending before the Appeal Board? I can see no justification for the Minister’s view. They have gone to the Board and his Department has investigated every one of those cases, and they were submitted to the Board with such evidence as could be obtained by his officials, and it is now a simple process of finalizing those. I see no reason why the same average should not work out for the cases that are still left. It would be a different matter if one said: You belong to the first team or to the second team as the result of your classification. But those people who are not allowed now to establish that they are members of the white group must then forever be classified as such, because their classifications cannot be gone into again. For all time they will have to accept the position of being members of the Coloured group, with all the disadvantages from which members of that group suffer.

I also want to express my grave disappointment at the attitude of the Minister. I would point out that the clause which enabled third parties to raise objections was one which was introduced by the Government and passed by this House. The Government has now decided, for reasons of its own, that it is no longer prepared to allow such objections. We do not support this view, but this principle of doing away with third party objections has been accepted at the second reading and I cannot go into it again. But it is one thing to do away with third party objections and quite another thing to do away with it in such a way that those people who have exercised rights under the section as it stands at the moment, rights which they were perfectly entitled to exercise with the law as it stands, should now be prohibited from doing so. We think it is doing a grave injustice to people who made application under the law as it stands at present, that they should now be prohibited from going on with these applications and be put in the position where they are incurring considerable costs which they will now lose through no fault of their own. They were exercising rights which the law gives them as it stands at present. If the Government now wishes to do away with third party objections, surely the fair thing to do would be to do it in such a way that applications which have been legally put in should not be affected. We have had no justification from the Minister or from any member opposite as to why these people should be prejudiced in this way.

Now I come to the clause dealing with appeals. The more we see of this Government, the more we find that words do not have dictionary meanings with them. They have the meaning which the Government wants to give them. Let us look at these words. As the clause reads at present, it says: “The Division of the Supreme Court to which appeal is made shall inquire into and consider the matter and shall confirm or vary or set aside the decision of the board”. We now have the Minister saying that the Government did not intend to give the Appeal Court these powers. Sir, how ridiculous can the Government become? This is a clause which this Government has passed. Surely the House was entitled to assume, when it was asked to pass this clause, that the Government intended to give the Appeal Court the powers set out in the clause; but now we find that that was not the intention of the Government at all.

You can accuse the Government of having made a mistake.

I cannot hear very well, but I think the Minister is saying that the Government was at fault in passing clause 7 as it now reads. If the Minister had said this when he tried to justify the amendment, it would be another matter. He did not suggest that the Government was at fault. He simply suggested that the Appeal Court should not have had these powers in the first place. I have already dealt with this in reply to the hon. member for Prinshof. In our view there is every reason why the Appeal Court should be given these wide powers to inquire fully into this question and to decide for itself whether or not there has been a proper classification, without being fettered in any way by the normal rules which apply to appeals. The Minister, not being a legal man, may not be aware that the normal rules of appeal place certain definite restrictions on an Appeal Court. The Appeal Court is confined to the record and to accepting certain findings of fact by the lower court. It is not allowed itself to go fully into the matter. This is what the amendment which is now being introduced will bring about, instead of giving the Appeal Court the full powers which we think it should have. So, having had the unsatisfactory reasons of the Minister for the proposed amendment, we are even more determined to oppose this clause.

Before I sit down I would point out to the Minister that he has not dealt with my objections to subsection (2). I pointed out that this was a new subsection which gives a minor the right to object to his classification, and that the clause as it reads does not state when that right can be exercised.

I did reply to it, but I do not think you were here then.

Can it be done at any time?

No, subsection (1) deals with the time.

If the Minister replied when I was not here I will not delay the House further. I will have a look at his reply and perhaps deal with it further at the third reading. Before I sit down I would like to appeal again to the hon. the Minister to reconsider his attitude to the amendments moved by myself and the hon. member for Green Point. I do not believe that it would do any harm to the principles of this measure which the Government is trying to enshrine in legislation. Perhaps no more than 100 cases would be affected, and to say, as the hon. the Minister does, that these persons who have lodged objections, which will now fall away, can apply to the secretary, is not a satisfactory reply because the position of these people at the moment is that they have the right to go to the Race Classifications Board and if they are not satisfied they can go on appeal. If they approach the secretary of the Department he may decide that they have a valid objection and he may deal with the matter but on the other hand, he may reject their objection, and if he does reject it they have no right of recourse unless they can show mala fides on the part of the secretary, which is virtually impossible to prove, as any of the legal members on the Government side would be able to tell the hon. the Minister. [Time expired.]

I would like to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister. If he makes this concession for which we have asked I think he will show that the Government is not intending to wield the big stick. It is perfectly clear that the appeal which has been made to the hon. the Minister affects only a few people, but the Minister is being adamant; he refuses to concede the point. I think it will show bigness on the part of the hon. the Minister if he would say, “I am not prepared to prejudice those people who have acted up to the present time in terms of the law as it now stands”.

Order! The hon. member is now arguing on clause 7.

No, Sir, I am talking about the amendments.

Order! Clause 7 makes this measure retrospective; no other clause does so.

The amendment provides that the provisions of the Act shall not apply to any objection lodged on or before the 31st March, 1967.

Order! That is under clause 7; clause 7 provides for retrospectivity.

With respect, Sir, I understood that the amendment was in respect of this clause.

Is the hon. member speaking to the amendment moved by the hon. member for Musgrave?

I accept your ruling, Sir, but I understood that an appeal was being made to the hon. the Minister not to cut off the rights of people whose appeals are now pending.

The hon. member may proceed.

Sir, I wish to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister in all sincerity to be big and to allow those people who have complied with the law as it has stood up to the present moment to carry on with their appeals. The Minister has made some sort of concession in saying, “I will allow them to go to the secretary and if the secretary thinks they have a case he can refer the matter to the board”. Sir, I do not think that any Parliament, whether it be this one or any other one, should lay itself open to the accusation that it has made a law which closes the gate to people when they have complied with the law as it stood at the time when they acted. At any rate, I make that appeal to the hon. the Minister. I think it will be a sign of magnanimity on his part and on the part of the Government if he will allow cases which are at present pending to proceed.

May I also deal briefly with the point raised by the hon. member for Musgrave in regard to minors. It is clear from the hon. the Minister’s reply that he presupposes that the minor will be of such an age that he will know what his rights are. I can understand that a minor of 17 or 18 or 19 will know what he has to do. But a minor of seven years of age may become an orphan and put into some home. When is he going to have the right to appeal? One must not look at this law as if it only affects people who can understand what they have to do. We must bear in mind that there are some minors who are so young that they do not know what their rights are. I hope that the hon. the Minister, on reflection, will agree that this clause should be amended in the interests of minors who are too young to know what their rights are. I just want to say once more to the hon. the Minister that I think this clause is unreasonable and that no Government should use its powers to close the gate to people when that gate has been open to them up to the present moment.

Amendment proposed by Mr. R. G. L. Hourquebie put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Tellers: G. P. v. d. Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Amendment accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed by Mr. L. G. Murray put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: G. P. v. d. Berg and H.J. van Wyk. Amendment accordingly negatived.

Clause, as printed, put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: G. P. v. d. Berg, and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: A. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Clause, as printed, accordingly agreed to.

Clause 6:

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister was strangely silent during his second-reading speech about the necessity for this amendment. It seems to us that, with this amendment, he is removing a presumption. Let me read to the Minister section 19 (1) proposed to be deleted—

A person who in appearance obviously is a white person shall for the purposes of this Act be presumed to be a white person until the contrary is proved.

Can the Minister explain to us why it is necessary to remove (this presumption? It seems to me that where a white person is suffering from what some people have referred to as a night club tan, such person would not be presumed to be a member of the white race. At any event, I wonder what the reason is for removing this presumption, and I should like the hon. the Minister to explain this to us.

Under the existing Act a person may be classified as white if he is white in appearance. Therefore that is something which is proved by the person himself. Under the amending legislation of 1962, however, the question of his acceptance and his association had to be proved by us; in other words, that he was not a white person on the grounds of association and acceptance. The only thing we are doing in this clause is to bring this section into agreement with section 1, which clause 1 of this Bill amends. To a certain extent the two provisions are really in conflict. Consequently, we are providing here that we place the onus of proof on him. If we were not to effect this amendment, it would mean that we would be placing the onus of proof on the Secretary, i.e. to prove the contrary. Now the onus to prove his acceptance is being placed on him. Consequently, this constitutes a shifting of the onus of proof. If we say that he is not accepted as a white person, the onus now rests on him to prove the contrary.

Sir, if that is the explanation which the Minister can give of this clause, then it is an extraordinary piece of legislation. It means that we have now reached the stage in this country where this Government, with its classification of each one into his own little group, says that even if you walk down the street as a white person— white in appearance and accepted by everybody as being white—you still somehow or other have to prove that you are a white person. Let us compare this with the old section Ibis, which is not being amended. It reads—

But the fact that I am white and walk down Adderley Street is no presumption whatsoever that I am, in fact, a white person. I cannot understand how the House can be asked to pass legislation of this nature.

if the hon. member who has just sat down wants to make out that this amendment is foreign to this legislation, I want to point out to him that it is something for which the Opposition has pleaded. This is a clause which makes provision for the acceptance of a person as a white person, but with an excluding provision that when the contrary is proved he is no longer a white person. [Interjections.]

He has to prove that he is accepted as a white person.

What is being done here is something for which the Opposition has pleaded. Section 19 of the Act is hereby brought into line with section 1.

I trust that now that the hon. member for Witbank has given us his explanation of what this clause means or what it ought to mean, he will vote with this side of the House when we come to oppose this clause. The effect of this clause is precisely the opposite of what the hon. member for Witbank thinks ought to be included in this clause. We on this side of the House feared that our interpretation of the effect of this clause was wrong, but now we find that we were not wrong. The effect of the amendment is that persons, even persons who in appearance are obviously white, will, nevertheless, not be presumed to be white by this Government. They will now have to prove that they are white. Mr. Chairman, what are we coming to under this Population Registration Act with this Government? I wonder how many hon. members opposite realize the true effect of this provision, or are they all under the mistaken impression of the hon. member for Witbank? I am rather inclined to think that the majority of hon. members on the opposite side do not know what they are being asked here to pass. To us it is a scandalous thing that a member of an aboriginal tribe, a person who is in appearance obviously such, is presumed to be such, but a white person, a person who in appearance is obviously a white person, will no longer be presumed to be white. This to us is a scandalous situation, and I trust that we will have from the Minister some justification for this and that he will not just get up and say: “Oh, we are just shifting the onus —instead of the Secretary now having to prove this, the person concerned will have to prove it.”

We will go to the country, we will go to the public, and we will tell people from political platforms that, under this Government, a person who is obviously a white person is no longer presumed to be white. We will tell (them that and, if this is what the Government want, fair enough, they will have it.

Mr. Chairman, the United Party really amuses me sometimes. Once they are given slack rein they start running, and then they become terribly dramatic, but there is absolutely nothing to become dramatic about. I want to tell the hon. member for Musgrave that there is absolutely nothing to become dramatic about.

Is it not true what I said?

No, it is not true at all, and I shall tell the hon. member why it is not true. This is the position. In view of the insertion of the new section 1 (1) and 1 (2), that part, i.e. subsection (1), which is now being removed from section 19 of the principal Act by clause 6, cannot be left in the Act.

Why not?

I shall tell you why. If the hon. member looks at subsection (2) of section 1, as amended, he will see that it has paragraphs (a) to (e), paragraphs which create certain presumptions. Is that so?

Yes.

Those presumptions are an onus of which the applicant has to acquit himself. Is that correct? If that is so, the hon. member for Musgrave will agree with me that the subsection we are removing can no longer be retained.

No, I do not agree.

For the simple reason that it creates exactly the opposite presumption.

No.

Now the position is this: Let us look at the subsection about which the United Party now wants to go to the country—and I wish they would. It will not be the first time the United Party made fools of themselves. They are going to the country again, and they are going to make fools of themselves on the platforms. Section 19 (1) of the principal Act, which clause 6 of this Bill seeks to delete, reads as follows—

If that subsection were to be retained and it meant that the Secretary himself would have to obtain all the circumstantial evidence concerning association in the case of every person who is white in appearance, surely it would create an impossible state of affairs. Where must the Secretary obtain that information?

But he is doing that now.

After all, it is much easier for an applicant to bring along his friends and to say: “You tell the board what my association is and what I pass for in the community.” The removal of that subsection brings this aspect into line with the first clause as regards proof of the person being white, as set out in the new subsections (1) and (2) of section 1 of the Act. If we were to retain this section which we are removing now, it would be entirely in conflict with section 1 (2). We must remove it— we have no option. What is happening now is this: where the onus of proof formerly rested on the Secretary, there will now be a proper trial. They will look at a person and all the factors we have been debating here ad nauseam, will be taken into account, and then a final decision will be made. There is no presumption against the Secretary. After all, such a presumption cannot be expected to exist. That is all that the removal of this subsection means.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Prinshof is not correct. First of all, he asks that if we do not shift the onus, where will the Secretary get the information? I can put another question to the hon. member in reply to that: Where have the Secretary and the department been getting their information up to now?

I said that the onus has already been shifted in terms of clause 2 of the Bill.

1 will deal with that point. The hon. member for Prinshof made two points and I am now dealing with the first one. There is no difficulty for the Secretary to get information to counter any information which the objector may lay before the board or the court, because the board or the court is concerned primarily with the person’s associations. I refer to the associations at the place where he lives, the associations at the place where he works, the associations at the places where he has his social life. It is not difficult for the Secretary to make inquiries from those with whom the person concerned works, from neighbours and friends of the objector to enable him to decide on his social contacts. So, there is no difficulty for the Secretary under the law as it stands and this certainly does not justify the shifting of the onus.

Now the hon. member for Prinshof says that they have to remove section 19 (1) from the present Act. as proposed by clause 6 of the Bill, to bring the section in line with the amended section of the Act. I may say that the fact that the onus has to be changed in the view of the Government because of the new amendments in clause 1 shows how much more drastic clause 1 is and how our attitude to clause 1 is justified. I want to deal with this matter on its merits. I can see no justification whatsoever for changing the presumption merely because clause 1 has been amended in this way. We can still have the position that a person who in appearance obviously is a white person shall be presumed to be white and still have all these tests. Because. Sir. all that happens then is that the presumption applies and the Secretary or the department can, if they consider that, despite the fact that the person concerned is obviously in appearance White, he is nevertheless not White, require him to bring forward the evidence which is called for by the proposed amendment to paragraph (a) of section 1 (2) and this would then be dealt with by the board on that basis. This is merely a shift of onus—it has nothing to do with the proposed amendment to section 1. We on this side are certainly very strongly opposed to requiring a person who in appearance is obviously a white person to have to prove it. In our opinion this is an insult to the persons concerned. We will oppose this.

Clause 6 put and the Committee divided:

Tellers: G. P. v. d. Berg and H. J. van Wyk.

Tellers: H. J. Bronkhorst and A. Hopewell.

Clause 7:

Mr. Chairman, I wish to move the following amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper—

If this amendment is accepted by the hon. the Minister, it will remove the retrospectivity which this clause places on every other clause and every other aspect of this Bill. I do not want to go into detail, as I indicated to you earlier on in this debate, by discussing every aspect of every clause in this Bill, but I do think that we must touch on one or two of them. First of all, if we allow this clause to remain as it is, it is going to bring under review, according to the Bill, every reclassification and many classifications which have taken place since 1950 under this Act. It reopens many classifications, except in so far as they have been made by a board. With that one exception every classification and reclassification which has been made since 1950 can now be reviewed. Now, I do not think that that is the Minister’s intention—as a matter of fact, I am sure it is not. Because, during the second-reading debate of this Bill, in reply to an interjection by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, the Minister said that classifications which had already been made were not affected by this legislation. I think that the Minister knows a little more about this Bill now than he knew when he made that statement. I now quote from Hansard of 17.3.1967, column 3178, where the Leader of the Opposition said: “But the legislation has retrospective effect?” To this the Minister replied: “It has retrospective effect only in so far as new classifications henceforth are concerned.” The Leader of the Opposition then said: “That is not what is stated in the Bill”, and the Minister thereupon said: “But that is the position”, to which the Leader of the Opposition retorted: “But then the Bill will have to be amended.” I am moving an amendment to give effect to the statements made and the undertakings given by the Minister during the second-reading debate of this Bill, in which he said that it was not his intention to make retrospective all the provisions of this Bill, which he is in fact making retrospective in this clause. What are some of them? Some of them are contained in clause 1. That clause contains provisions which, read together with the provisions in clause 2, completely wipe out the 1962 definition of a white person, although it in fact still remains in the Bill. Because the Minister has so circumscribed that definition of a white person with regulations and qualifying statements in this Bill that the definition of a white person is almost unnecessary. In the very last clause we have just considered, the Minister has removed subsection (1) of section 19, which was the last thread of anything attached to the definition of a white person in the original section.

Progress reported.