Candidate attorney Gareth Prince has launched an attack on the highest court in the country, claiming racist motivation lay behind the decision to reject his appeal to allow Rastafarians to be exempted from the prohibition on cannabis

Prince, who lost the appeal by one vote, says the Constitutional Court’s ruling shows “Africans are still being looked down upon”. Prince vows a “passive disobedience campaign”, including sit-ins and Rastafarians chaining themselves together, to push for an exemption for Rastafarians on religious principles from the prohibition on cannabis.

Last week five of the nine judges of the Constitutional Court ruled against Prince, who argued that by not being able to utilise cannabis the constitutional rights of Rastafarians were being ignored. The court ruled that infringing the Rastafarians’ rights to religious freedoms was justified by the state’s duty to enforce the law.

But heavy criticism of this decision was evident in a third judgement delivered by Judge Albie Sachs, with Judge Yvonne Mokgoro concurring, in which Sachs wrote that the majority decision has subjected the Rastafari community to a choice between their faith and respect for the law. Sachs, the only white signatory to the minority decision, said there was disagreement about how far the law should go to accommodate a minority religion. “The Constitution obliges the state to walk the extra mile,” wrote Sachs.

“The Constitutional Court has shown it is trying to enforce European values,” Prince said this week. He said the majority decision showed the judges “were trained in the Calvinistic way of thinking,” and called it anti-African. “You can’t judge Rastafarianism by the standards set by Christianity, Judaism or Islam.”

Rastafarianism has been labelled as Africa’s first religion, with one of the central principles a rejection of the “White Babylon”, which symbolizes Western culture and values. Prince said he still has faith in South Africa’s Constitution but that it is “only a tool”. “One has to blame the fools behind the tool,” for the court’s decision, he said.

Prince is widely regarded as a martyr of Rastafarian causes in South Africa and has been fighting since 1998 for an exemption for Rastafarians from prohibitions on the drug. He was denied membership of the Law Society of the Cape of Good Hope because of two previous convictions for possession of cannabis and has vowed to continue using the drug for religious purposes. He maintains, however, that cannabis is a side issue and that the case is “primarily about dignity, humanity and respect”.

(“The Mail&Guardian,” February 1, 2002)