A temporary halt has been placed on legal action against President Cyril Ramaphosa and Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube in relation to the Bela Act's implementation.
Image: Jacques Naude / Independent Newspapers
A temporary halt has been placed on legal action against President Cyril Ramaphosa and Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube in relation to the Bela Act's implementation.
This move is in response to the minister's purported Wednesday response to the lobbying organisations AfriForum and Solidarity Movement.
Earlier in January, the organisations served Ramaphosa and Gwarube with letters of demand over the announcement of the Bela Act, saying it was irrational and unconstitutional.
They were given 10 days to resolve the dispute on the Act. The deadline expired on January 29.
"Ramaphosa acted irrationally and in breach of various agreements, as well as a recommendation by Gwarube, by promulgating the Bela Act in its entirety.
"Gwarube recommended that the implementation of the language and admissions policy be postponed due to the absence of appropriate norms and standards," the organisations said.
The Act was signed into law by the President in September last year.
However, Clauses 4 and 5 were excluded for additional public consultation, and the implementation was deferred for three months to facilitate a comprehensive evaluation.
This decision followed significant opposition from political parties, including the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), and AfriForum, among others.
The primary concerns centered around Clauses 4 and 5, which grant the Department of Education authority over admissions regulations and require school governing bodies to submit their language policies for approval by the provincial head of the department.
In response to these concerns, President Ramaphosa allowed a three-month period for stakeholders to engage in dialogue and reach consensus on the contested provisions before the Bill’s full implementation.
Speaking to IOL, Solidarity head, Werner Human said Gwarube asked them to prolong or extend the date, as she was busy with guidelines of the matter.
"The reason is that they said there are guidelines being developed that may address the core concerns that we have," he said.
According to Human, they accepted the request and postponed the deadline for another two weeks.
"Once we are in court, we want to be able to show that we pursued every option available to avoid litigation. We have viewed it as simply the axe that has been lifted but it is still there," he added.
Human said they will discuss the contents that they received from the minister if the guidelines were published.
IOL Politics