{"id":4846,"date":"2021-06-02T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-02T07:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityconnect.co.za\/?p=4846"},"modified":"2021-06-02T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T07:50:00","slug":"stricter-penalties-for-discrimination-proposed-in-new-draft-law-what-you-need-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/2021\/06\/02\/stricter-penalties-for-discrimination-proposed-in-new-draft-law-what-you-need-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Stricter penalties for discrimination proposed in new draft law \u2013 what you need to know"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The proposed changes are outlined in an amendment Bill for the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (Pepuda), and were published by the&nbsp;Department Of Justice And Constitutional Development last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Under the proposed new law:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Neither the State nor any person may unfairly discriminate against any person based on race, religion, gender or disability.<br \/><br \/><\/li><li>Companies will carry greater responsibility for discrimination and will have to prove that they have taken &#8220;reasonable steps&#8221; to prevent discrimination by employees if they want to avoid facing legal action themselves along with the employee\/s<br \/><br \/><\/li><li>The definition of discrimination would be broadened. The requirement of &nbsp;intentional action would be removed, and an employee who undermines the dignity of a person in a protected class, even by accident, would create corporate liability.<br \/><br \/><\/li><li>In terms of disability, the proposed law states that: \u201csubject to section 6, no person may unfairly discriminate against any person on the ground of disability, including\u2014<br \/>(a) denying or removing from any person who has a disability, any supporting or enabling facility necessary for their functioning in society;<br \/>(b) contravening the code of practice or regulations of the South African Bureau of Standards that govern environmental accessibility;<br \/>(c) failing to eliminate obstacles that unfairly limit or restrict persons with disabilities from enjoying equal opportunities or failing to take steps to reasonably accommodate the needs of such persons.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Discrimination would be much easier to prove, and the following actions could lead to legal action:<br \/>&#8211; encouraging someone else to discriminate<br \/>&#8211; causing prejudice<br \/>&#8211; undermining dignity<br \/><\/li><li>Discrimination could be found <strong>whether it had been intentional or not<\/strong>, and so could be classified as direct or indirect.<br \/><br \/><\/li><li>The definition of equality would be amended to include &#8220;equal right and access to resources, opportunities, benefits and advantages.&#8221;<br \/><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pepuda aims to fight unfair discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, age disability, language, religion, and other specific grounds, but also contains catch-all definitions dealing with any discrimination that causes systemic disadvantage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The proposed changes are outlined in an amendment Bill for the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (Pepuda), and were published by the&nbsp;Department Of Justice And Constitutional Development last week. Under the proposed new law: Neither the State nor any person may unfairly discriminate against any person based on race, religion, gender [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[240,64],"tags":[157,336,337],"class_list":["post-4846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-business-place","category-thought-leadership-the-business-place","tag-discrimination","tag-discrimination-law","tag-pepuda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.disabilityconnectexpo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}