2. The CFCR welcomes the opportunity to make concise submissions to the Department of Labour (DOL) on the Draft Employment Equity Regulations 2014 (the Regulations) published in terms of the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 (the Act), in response to your call for submissions as published in the Government Gazette No 37338 of 28 February 2014.
3. It is, however, not the purpose or intention of this submission to provide comprehensive legal analysis or technical assessment of the Regulations, but rather to draw attention to key concerns in relation to the provisions of the Regulations, particularly in so far as they relate to constitutional values, rights and requirements.
4. Accordingly, the CFCR is, in principle, concerned about the resolve to enforce the use of national and regional demographic profiles of the respective economically active population for the purpose of achieving proportional equitable representation. In this regard, it is our submission as will be elucidated below, that the aforementioned use of demographic profiles fails to uphold – in a balanced manner – the constitutional values of human dignity, the achievement of equality, non-racialism and non-sexism as provided for in section 1 of the Constitution. It is also our submission that the provisions of the Regulations limit the right to full and equal enjoyment of all rights and freedoms as provided for in section 9 of the Constitution in an unfair manner and fail to meet the criteria for the limitation of rights as provided for in section 36 of the Constitution.
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