Introduction

The FW de Klerk Foundation’s Cultural, Religious, and Linguistic Rights Report Card 2026 (“CRL Report Card”) calls for stronger enforcement powers for the Pan South African Language Board (“PanSALB”). At present, the PanSALB Act, 1995, limits PanSALB largely to monitoring compliance, facilitating mediation and conciliation and making recommendations. While these functions are important, they do not empower PanSALB to ensure entities comply with its recommendations and PanSALB can only rely on its moral authority as a constitutional body. Strengthening PanSALB’s enforcement powers would help ensure that South Africa’s language rights framework is implemented more effectively and that constitutional protections enjoy practical effect.

South Africa’s language rights framework

The law, specifically the Use of Official Languages Act, 2012,  requires that every national department, public entity and public enterprise communicate with the public in at least three official languages, adopt a language policy, establish language units (to ensure that policy is followed), and report annually to PanSALB on implementation. Yet, the CRL Report Card found that only 19% (eight of 42 national) departments responded to in a request from PanSALB regarding their readiness to implement South African Sign Language (“SASL”). Additionally, PanSALB also reported that only three government departments had senior officials responsible for language implementation as envisaged by the Act to oversee implementation.

These figures point to a large gap between language rights in law and language rights in practice. And this is not simply a matter of bureaucratic failure. They have direct consequences for millions of South Africans – especially speakers of indigenous languages, Deaf South Africans, and all others who fall into a language minority – who continue to face barriers when trying to access government information and/or services. Promoting and protecting all of these rights is the duty of PanSALB. Its effectiveness, therefore, has implications not only for governance, but also for equal access, inclusion and the practical realisation of constitutional rights.

PanSALB’s role

Section 6(5)(a) of the Constitution creates PanSALB and states its job is to “promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of (i) all official languages; and (ii) the Khoi, Nama and San languages”. Yet its ability to fulfil this mandate remains constrained by limited enforcement powers. The evidence suggests that recommendations alone are often insufficient to secure compliance. The CRL Report Card found that 34 of 42 national departments did not respond to PanSALB’s request for information on the implementation of SASL. This level of non-compliance raises important questions about accountability within the existing framework. Where there are no meaningful consequences for failing to meet statutory obligations, implementation is likely to remain uneven. Strengthening PanSALB’s enforcement mandate would not alter its constitutional purpose. Rather, it would provide practical tools to support that purpose and help ensure that language rights receive the attention and protection envisaged by the Constitution. The Foundation argues that a stronger and more effective PanSALB is necessary to translate constitutional commitments into measurable outcomes for all language communities.

Policy implementation and recommendations

A dire issue found throughout the CRL Report Card was the disconnection between policy and its implementation. For language rights specifically, this can be rectified by giving PanSALB further enforcement powers, such as empowering PanSALB to issue compliance notices and require non-compliant institutions to submit action plans with deadlines to PanSALB. If these institutions continued to be non-compliant, PanSALB would have the ability to refer them to Parliament for oversight. PanSALB has asked for these powers in its Strategic Plan 2025-2030, requesting that both the PanSALB Act, 1995 and the Use of Official Languages Act, 2012 be reviewed to grant it enforcement powers.

Importantly, such powers would not be unusual. Under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013, the Information Regulator may issue enforcement notices with deadlines and, in 2023, when the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development failed to comply, the Regulator fined the Department R5 million. A constitutional right deserves the same treatment and level of severity when violated as data protection.

Conclusion

State institutions’ accessibility will not change simply, because we want it to. Nothing will improve from one year to the next if we do not give an entity the power to ensure change is made. Though this does not solve the issue of 73% of state institutions lacking adequate funding, it pressures institutions to advocate for funding to further their constitutional duty of ensuring all official languages enjoy parity of esteem.