Page:Minister of Home Affairs v Fourie.djvu/94

 Rh the facilities provided by the law were substantially the same for both groups. In S v Pitje where the appellant, an African candidate attorney employed by the firm Mandela and Tambo, occupied a place at a table in court that was reserved for “European practitioners” and refused to take his place at a table reserved for “non-European practitioners”, Steyn CJ upheld the appellant’s conviction for contempt of court as it was “… clear [from the record] that a practitioner would in every way be as well seated at the one table as at the other, and that he could not possibly have been hampered in the slightest in the conduct of his case by having to use a particular table.”

The above approach is unthinkable in our constitutional democracy today not simply because the law has changed dramatically, but because our society is

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