Live statuteSupportedZAHate umbrella
s.10
Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
- Target
- Civil prohibition of hate speech on listed prohibited grounds
- Test
- Objective: words based on a prohibited ground that could reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to be harmful or to incite harm and to promote or propagate hatred (conjunctive after Qwelane / the 2023 substitution).
- Max
- Civil equality-court remedies. The court may refer to the DPP; this section is not itself a crime.
Subject to the proviso in section 12, no person may publish, propagate, advocate or communicate words based on one or more of the prohibited grounds, against any person, that could reasonably be construed to demonstrate a clear intention to be harmful or to incite harm and to promote or propagate hatred.
PEPUDA s.10(1) as substituted by s.20 of the Judicial Matters Amendment Act 15 of 2023, in force 3 April 2024. English is an official language. SAFLII consolidation.
Cite · Act 4 of 2000, s.10(1), as substituted by Act 15 of 2023 s.20 (GG 50430, 3 April 2024) · as of 2026-09-05
- Do not speak as if PEPUDA s.10 were a criminal glorification statute.
- Civil overlay in the equality courts. Not a listed-speech terrorism offence.
- Qwelane v SAHRC [2021] ZACC 22 struck 'hurtful' and required a conjunctive reading. Parliament wrote that reading into s.10(1) from 3 April 2024.
- s.10(2) allows referral for common-law or other criminal proceedings. That referral is not this quote.
- The Prevention and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Act 16 of 2023 (criminal hate-speech offence) is gazetted; commencement remains to be proclaimed — Unproven-as-law here.