Parliamentary question concerning the pass laws in South Africa, 1960

Transcript

Your telegram No. 215.

PARLIAMENTARY QUESTION

Following is a draft reply. Begins.

I assume the question refers to citizens of United Kingdom and the Colonies and British protected persons resident in the Union of South Africa. The law of Union requires that every adult male African resident there must be in possession of a reference book issued by the Union authorities and containing his personal particulars and particulars of his employment. Any authorised officer may at any time call on any adult male African resident in the Union to produce his reference book. Ends.

1. Following are notes for supplementaries:

(a)     The Act which deals with ‘passes’ is the Natives (Abolition of Passes) and the Co-ordination of Documents) Act 1952

(b)     In terms of Section 12 of the Natives (Urban Areas) Consolidation Act 1945 as amended by Act No.16 of 1955 and Act No.79 of 1957, no African born outside the Union and South West Africa may enter or remain in or be employed in an urban or a proclaimed area without the written permission of the Secretary for Bantu Administration and Development. This means that an additional permit is required by ‘foreign natives’ in urban areas but the ‘reference books’ referred to in the draft answer above are the documents commonly known as ‘passes’. It should be noted that Section 10 of the 1945 Act has the effect of requiring Union Africans also to have permits to be in the urban or proclaimed areas unless they were born in the areas in question;

(c)     Africans from United Kingdom dependencies living in the Union must naturally obey the laws of the Union.

(d)    The population Registration Act 1950 provides for the issue of identity cards to Europeans and Africans. This Act provides also that from a date to be proclaimed these identity cards must be produced on request to authorised persons but no date has yet been proclaimed and the issue of identity cards is not yet complete.

[...]