Answer to Question #195453 in Law for suzie thipe

Question

what is the legal question that was answered by the court, (7marks) in the case of Gumede v President of Republic of South Africa

ant the decision of the court and reasons for the judgement.(8marks)

Answer 1

Legal question that was answered by the court, in the case of Gumede v President of Republic of South Africa was concerned with a claim of unfair gender and race discrimination in relation to women in relation to women who are married under customary law as codified in KwaZulu-Natal. The High Court found in favor of Ms. Gumede and declared Section 7(1) of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 120 of 1998 (“Recognition Act”) unconstitutional and invalid; the inclusion of the words “entered into after the commencement of this Act” in Section 7(2) of the Recognition Act was declared inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid; Section 20 of the KwaZulu Act on the Code of Zulu Law (KwaZulu Act) and Sections 20 and 22 of the Natal Code or Zulu Law (Natal Code) were also declared unconstitutional. The court held the provisions offended Sections 9(3) and (5) of the South African Constitution, as they unfairly discriminated against women on the grounds of gender and race. The decisions were made based on the following reasons the provisions did not address the discrimination against women while married, and because women and men did not start on equal footing, in terms of property, in divorce court and the Court also found that the customary marriages concluded before the enactment of the Recognition Act fostered a “particularly crude and gendered form of inequality.”