The unlawful instruction, delivered by the Department in a letter to NEASA on 5 December 2025, is a crucial revelation that the state has no legal means to classify employees by race and intends to place the burden of its racial classification policies on businesses rather than assuming the responsibility and concomitant legal and political risks itself. The Population Registration Act, before it was repealed in 1991 by the National Party government at the time, established a state-run racial classification scheme in South Africa. The scheme provided for definitions of race, requiring state officials to classify every person in South Africa accordingly, subject to the right of appeal to the state’s race classification boards.
Sam Busa