The Riotous Assemblies Act – a useful relic

Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema’s latest court travail comes courtesy of the Riotous Assemblies Act of 1956, a law that sought to “consolidate the laws relating to riotous assemblies and the prohibition of the engendering of feelings of hostility between the European and non-European inhabitants of the Union”, according to its own preamble.

It was enacted presumably in response to the 1955 gathering of more than 3 000 people of all races to adopt the Freedom Charter. It was then used to imprison thousands of anti-apartheid demonstrators and activists.

According to the O’Malley Archives, now housed at the Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory, the Act featured prominently in the Rivonia treason trial. Some 156 people “were arrested on treason charges for having attended the Congress and signed the Freedom Charter”.

The Act further allowed the government to punish (even through banishment) anyone, or ban any “documentary information” that was deemed to cause hostility between black and white people. It also punished acts that presumably brought the races together, such as the meeting to adopt the Charter.

Unlike the Immorality Act, the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Bantu Education Act and other legal building blocks of apartheid, the Riotous Assemblies Act still applies and has been quoted in court cases, such as State vs Booi and Others in September this year.

Malema plans to challenge the constitutionality of the Riotous Assemblies Act. — Sipho Hlongwane