Concourt told quotas unfair to coloureds
The Constitutional Court grappled yesterday with the question of whether an employment equity plan that ignored regional demographics should be invalidated. The case has its origins in 2012, when union Solidarity and 10 of its members challenged the employment equity plan of the Department of Correctional Services, as implemented from 2010 to last year.Nine coloured candidates and one white were refused appointment or promotion on the basis that their appointment would not contribute to achieving national demographic representation in the department' s workforce.Solidarity challenged the validity of the plan on the grounds that it specified that appointments and promotions must be made in compliance with quotas strictly reflecting the demographics of South Africa as a whole.Although coloureds constitute more than half of the total working population in Western Cape, they make up only 8.8% of the national population, the union said.In 2013, the Labour Court ordered the department to take immediate steps to ensure that both national and regional demographics were taken into account when setting equity targets, but it did not invalidate the department's employment equity plan.The job candidates then appealed to the Labour Appeal Court because the Labour Court had not ordered the department to promote, appoint or compensate them.In April the court dismissed the appeal.Arguing for the union and the candidates, Jeremy Gauntlett SC said the department's employment equity plan did not comply with the Employment Equity Act.He said the candidates were passed over for promotion despite being unanimously recommended for the vacancies.The plan, said Gauntlett, did not allow for deviations that would ensure that deserving candidates were appointed.Marumo Moerane SC, for the department, said the plan did allow deviation."There was no inflexible adherence to the plan," Moerane said.When asked by Justice Edwin Cameron whether consideration of regional demographics could be accommodated in deviating from the department's plan, Moerane said the law did not compel the employer to set targets in terms of regional demographics.The court reserved judgment...
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