Cultural Protections – 1996
1996
According to a news report, “a compromise has been brokered in the language and customs area with a proposed Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural Religious and Linguistic Communities, which in essence prohibits the state from barring private institutions such as schools from promoting minority rights.”1
According to the Human Rights Commission of South Africa, the amorphous nature of cultural rights is recognized by the 1996 Constitution by providing a constitutional mechanism to establish a Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CPPR). The “Constitution protects minority rights. Specific attention has been paid to avoiding terminology, such as ethnic minority to avoid any association with the ethnic particularism of apartheid ideology. Instead the language of the Constitution refers to “persons belonging to a cultural community.” The emphasis has been focused on the minority rights of Afrikaans speaking whites.2“Economic Social and Cultural Rights in South Africa” Human Rights Commission of South Africa, 2000, accessed July 13, 2010, http://www.humanrights.se/upload/files/2/Rapporter%20och%20seminariedok/…
The CPPR, however, was not established in 1996.