Trade union Solidarity and the civil rights organisation AfriForum have both served legal documents in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia) to force the minister to reveal any information regarding planned transformation (read: ‘quota’) targets.
The legal action against more affirmative action in South African sport comes after Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula announced earlier this year that sport codes not achieving transformation targets will no longer be permitted to host international sporting events. The Minister singled out four sports bodies that, according to him, do not meet the requirements. These include the South African Rugby Union, Cricket South Africa, Netball South Africa and Athletics South Africa.
The Deputy Chief Executive of Solidarity, Johan Kruger, says the Minister of Sport must, in terms of this application, disclose all agreements with regard to transformation targets between the sports bodies and the Minister. “Through our application for access to information, we are forcing the Minister to disclose his racially based quota targets, which will then enable us to commence with further litigation against the implementation of sport quotas,” Kruger explained.
According to Henk Maree, National Spokesperson of AfriForum, this course of action will also be used to garner international support. “Merit should be the only criteria when selecting sports teams and we will use this action to create international awareness of the absurd implementation of sports quotas in South Africa,” Maree said.
