AfriForum, varsity wait for ruling

Afrikaner rights group AfriForum has been accused of ignoring the rights of others in its charge to stop the resolution of the University of Pretoria to drop Afrikaans as a medium of instruction.

2 Dec 2016

Adopted in September 1932, Afrikaans was the only language of instruction until 1993 when English was introduced.

AfriForum wants the full bench of the Pretoria High Court - Judges Selby Baqwa, Jody Kollapen and Peter Mabuse - to review the university council's decision to start the next academic year without Afrikaans.

The group said the resolution clashed with section 29(2) of the constitution, which guarantees a right to instruction in a language of choice where it is reasonably practicable.

But lawyers for the university argued that AfriForum sought to "ignore that there is linkage between race and language in the context of the country's history".

Arguing for the university, advocate Gilbert Marcus SC said the language policy aims to address a history of exclusion and privilege.

He said only 18% of the university's population was Afrikaans-speaking.

Marcus said AfriForum "purports to speak for the interests of future Afrikaans-speaking students and yet fails to attach a single affidavit by any affected student.

"[It also] leaves out the vast majority of students who think otherwise and is advanced on the basis of a narrow ideology," he said.

Gerta Engelbrecht, the AfriForum lawyer, said the group recognised "the reality of our horrible past and could not run away from history but it wanted to forge a future where each individual has a right to learn in their language of choice". Judgment was reserved in the matter.

Source: The Times

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