Apartheid Definition:

Justice Sprizzo of the United States District Court (New York) wrote, in Re South African Apartheid Litigation:

"According to the allegations set forth in the various complaints, the 1948 South African elections witnessed the rise to power of the National Party. Building on laws that restricted the African majority in the country, the National Party erected a system whereby a group of inhabitants who accounted for just fourteen percent of the population completely ruled over the country and controlled all aspects of life.

"That system — apartheid — shockingly and regrettably reigned supreme over an entire country and its people until just over one decade ago. The history of apartheid is one marked by hatred, racism, and inhuman treatment. Fueled by the desire to exact the greatest possible benefit from an African majority that had no official purpose except to work for whites, the apartheid regime engaged in practices that were deemed by some as repugnant to the moral and political values of democratic and free societies, and by others as nothing short of a crime against humanity."

In Burrell v Peel Police, Master Dean of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, at ¶19, gave judicial sanction to these words:

"Apartheid is ... the system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race in force in South Africa 1948-91.

"[A]partheid in South Africa called for a set of laws for blacks and another set for whites, with whites having greater rights than blacks."

REFERENCES:

• Burrell v Peel Police, 2006 CarswellOnt 7983 and at 2006 CanLII 42072
• In re South African Apartheid Litigation, 346 F. Supp. 2d 538 (2004)