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Rh “Section 8 was adopted then in the recognition that discrimination against people who are members of disfavoured groups can lead to patterns of group disadvantage and harm. Such discrimination is unfair: it builds and entrenches inequality amongst different groups in our society. The drafters realised that it was necessary both to proscribe such forms of discrimination and to permit positive steps to redress the effects of such discrimination. The need to prohibit such patterns of discrimination and to remedy their results are the primary purposes of section 8 and, in particular, subsections (2), (3) and (4).”

In Prinsloo and in Harksen a multi-stage enquiry was postulated as being necessary when an attack of constitutional invalidity was based on section 8 of the interim Constitution. In Harksen the approach was summarised as follows: “At the cost of repetition, it may be as well to tabulate the stages of enquiry which become necessary where an attack is made on a provision in reliance on section 8 of the interim Constitution. They are:

Rh