Word: strydom
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South Africa's Nationalist Prime Minister Johannes Gerhardus Strydom last week tore down the last big constitutional barrier to one-party racial control over his divided land. He had already packed South Africa's High Court bench, by adding five new judges favorable to the government; now he pressed through Parliament a bill endorsing his court-packing decree, and ensuring that a quorum of the new court would be able to override the South African constitution...
...Strydom's chief objective, like his predecessor Daniel Malan's, was to disenfranchise the 45,000 mixed-blood people who still have votes in South Africa. One of the "entrenched clauses," written into the South African constitution by the British Parliament in 1909, guarantees the voting rights of all mixed-blood people in Cape Province. Twice the Nationalists have passed legislation that, in effect, would enable the government to root out this "entrenched clause," but twice the High Court has ruled their efforts unconstitutional. To override the court, the constitution requires a two-thirds majority of both Houses...
Black Monday. Strydom's bill increased the High Court membership from six to eleven. He explained it as an attempt "to bring a larger number of legal minds to bear on constitutional problems." Of the five new judges appointed, one has campaigned for the Nationalists in Cape Province and the rest are undistinguished, except in their loyalty to the Strydom regime. In Johannesburg, the Society of Advocates (a bar association) raised its voice in protest: "It is dangerous and unpatriotic to imperil, for the sake of mere political advantage, the great esteem in which our highest court is held...
...Prime Minister of South Africa, gimlet-eyed Johannes Gerhardus Strydom, 61, presented his first program to Parliament last week. It was pure Malanism. Strydom asked Parliament to reduce the authority of South Africa's highest courts, which for three years have thwarted old Daniel Malan's attempt to disenfranchise 50.000 Cape Colored (mixed blood) voters. He was less extreme than his enemies had feared (he did not yet demand, for example, that South Africa sever ties with Britain), a fact which gave his program almost the appearance of moderation. But moderation, Strydom style, includes recommending legislation which would...
Malanian Miscalculation. It took the Nationalist Party bosses, meeting in Pretoria, only seven minutes last week to elect Strydom to power. Outside, an excited crowd waited for the first appearance of their new Prime Minister. "Dis die leeul" (It is the Lion), they cried, and hoisted him shoulder high. No smile, no sign of expression crossed the Lion's feline face as supporters began singing the Boer song Vrye Volk. Wailed Daniel Malan when he heard of it: "I have miscalculated . . . I have miscalculated...