REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA COMBINED SECOND PERIODIC REPORT UNDER THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLE`S RIGHTS and INITIAL REPORT UNDER THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA and to build an environment that supports and enables those who have been historically disadvantaged by unfair discrimination to fulfil their maximum potential. It refers to women as one of the designated groups targeted for affirmative action. 79. Many cases brought by women have succeeded under the Equality Act. These include cases such as Mpanza v Cele303 and Gender Justice Network v Malema.304 80. Table 4 below presents a summary of some of the landmark decisions made the Constitutional Court, Supreme Court of Appeal and the High Courts that have been rendered since the advent of constitutional democracy in South Africa. Table 4: Landmark cases on the rights of women Case Summary Violence against women 1 S v Jackson, 1998 (4) The common law cautionary rule in cases of sexual violence was abolished since it was based on discriminatory, irrational and outdated BCLR 424 (SCA) perceptions. 2 S v Baloyi, 2000 (1) Constitutional Court declined to declare unconstitutional the reverse onus of proving absence of guilt on a person charged with breach of a BCLR 86 (CC) family violence interdict. 303 This case is also referred to as the Umlazi T-Section case. In 2008, informal male leaders in Umlazi, a township outside of Durban, issued an edict that prohibited women from wearing trousers in the community. The Ndunas argued it was not traditional for women to wear trousers, and that doing so contributed to moral degeneration and incidences of rape. Shortly thereafter, a resident of Umlazi, Zandile Mpanza, was chased by a mob of men who assaulted her, stripped her pants off, and made her walk home partially naked for violating the “code” prohibiting women from wearing pants. She was not the only woman who had been subjected to violence and harassment for wearing pants in violation of the supposed code. With legal representation provided by the Commission for Gender Equality, Mpanza took her complaint against the men who instituted the ban to the Equality Court. The magistrate overseeing the case ruled in favour of Mpanza, and ordered the removal and prohibition of the ban on women wearing pants because it unfairly discriminated against women under the Act. The Court ordered that the Umlazi police were to convene a community meeting to notify T-Section residents of the court order, and to notify the Commission on Gender Equality on pending or reported cases involving the ban. Lastly, two of the respondents were ordered to unconditionally apologize for implementing the ban. The four men who attacked Mpanza faced criminal charges in the criminal courts for assault, malicious damage to property, intimidation, and indecent assault. 304 The matter was brought before the Equality on the 29th January 2009. The respondent was called upon to answer for his conduct because of a speech that he made, while addressing members of the public on the 22 nd January 2009, at the Cape Peninsula Technikon in Cape Town. The Court was to decide whether his comments amounted to hate speech and or harassment as per the definitions found within the framework of the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, Act 4 of 2000. The Court held that the utterances complained of did amount to hate speech and harassment. The respondent was ordered to issue a public apology within two weeks from date of judgment in the form of a press release and to pay People Opposed to Women Abuse (POWA) an amount of R 50 000 within one month of date of judgment. 157