The Minister of Justice, Yvonne Dausab, on Tuesday called on the general public to assist in identifying outdated and obsolete apartheid laws which are still operational in the country, and which continue to cause harm to the nation.

She made the call in the National Assembly Tuesday afternoon when she motivated the Law Reform and Development Commission (LRDC) report, seeking full rights to repeal and amend parts of the legislature that need to be realigned with the current systems of independent Namibia.

Dausab also encouraged other parliamentarians to support the LRDC’s efforts which are aimed at repealing obsolete and unnecessary discriminatory and harmful laws which still exist.

“For instance there is a Native Minimum Wage Proclamation of 1944 as Proclamation No. 1 of 1944 which provides for payments of minimum wages to natives, who are any persons other than Europeans,” she said.

The minister stated that this proclamation is completely harmful as it only targets local born Namibians, and thus needs to be repealed.

Another discriminatory legislature still existing is the Cultural Promotion Ordinance of 1980, Ordinance No. 9 of 1980, which promotes the culture of the white population residing in South West Africa, said Dausab.

This legislature is against the Constitution of Namibia in Article 19, as the Article guarantees the rights to culture irrespective of any race, she said.

Dausab further stated that in total there are about 71 discriminatory outdated laws that need repeal or amendment in phase two by the LRDC.

“These 71 outdated laws still exist in sectors of procurement, railway, harbour, matters of trespassing and financing,” she said.

Dausab concluded by saying that phase one which repealed some outdated laws in 2013 to 2018, was a successful exercise by the LRDC as new laws were on 01 March 2019 placed into operation by the country.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency