Ten job applicants challenging Correctional Service’s employment equity plan in the Labour Court are confident of a victory.
|||Cape Town - The court case union Solidarity says will “forever change the face of affirmative action”, is drawing to a close in the Labour Court, with the applicants confident of a victory.
The case involves 10 job applicants challenging the Department of Correctional Service’s employment equity plan, claiming they were not considered because they were coloured.
On Monday, the department’s legal team called a final expert witness, researcher Susan Nkomo, to the stand.
The applicants, represented by Solidarity, are made up of a group of nine Correctional Services Department employees and a job applicant.
Nkomo gave evidence based on a report before court which she had compiled in response to a report introduced by Solidarity economic researcher Paul Joubert, who had earlier testified that equity targets should be based on figures that represented South Africa’s active workforce, not the total population.
Marumo Moerane, representing the department, said the employment equity plan needed to be viewed in the proper context – politically, historically, economically and socially.
Moerane also argued previously that coloured people were given preferential treatment and were more protected than black people during the years of apartheid.
In her report, Nkomo said: “Joubert’s argument pivots on a notion of the Western Cape as somehow different from or apart from the rest of South Africa. Further, he expects the Department of Correctional Services to conserve the peculiarities of the Western Cape by treating it differently from the rest of the country.”
Both parties were expected to hand in their heads of arguments to presiding Judge Hilary Rabkin-Naicker later this month.
After court proceedings, Solidarity called a meeting with the group of applicants.
Solidarity’s Dirk Hermann commended the applicants for their ”bravery”. He said the union was convinced they and the applicants had done “more than enough” in court. If this court bid was unsuccessful, they would be “going all the way” and would appeal.
During the meeting, Freddie Engelbrecht, deputy regional commissioner for Correctional Services, thanked Solidarity on behalf of the group, saying that without the union they could not have done it.
“The community outside cannot wait for an outcome,” he said.
Judge Rabkin-Naicker said a decision on when the case would resume would be made after the heads of argument were handed to the court.
natasha.prince@inl.co.za
Cape Argus