Monday marks the first day for employers in different sectors across the country to start reporting according to the government’s new employment equity regulations despite pending legal challenges.
The National Employers’ Association of SA (Neasa), which represents about 7,000 employers, and business lobby group Sakeliga last week lost an urgent legal challenge in the Pretoria high court where it sought an interim order to suspend the employment equity regulations pending a review application.
This means from September 1 employers will have to report based on the new regulations, with numerical targets for employment sectors. The regulations were published in April after the Employment Equity Amendment Act (EEAA) came into effect in January.
Neasa and Sakeliga, organisations fighting government BEE policies, have vowed to appeal the high court ruling directly to the Constitutional Court.
While the legal battles continue, the act and regulations remain lawful until overturned. The 2025 employment equity reporting period opens on September 1 and closes on January 15.
Why This Matters
- Marks a major step toward workplace transformation and diversity in post-apartheid SA.
- High court ruling reinforces that regulations remain enforceable even while legal challenges are pending.
- Impacts HR, hiring, pay and governance practices across sectors.
- Increases transparency and accountability for employers on equity progress.
- Highlights tensions between government transformation goals and private-sector resistance.
- Signals SA’s commitment to inclusive economic growth to international investors.
Judge Graham Moshoana dismissed the urgent application, pointing out an interdict was not an appropriate remedy in the circumstances of the case.
In his judgment Moshoana drew from previous cases which stipulated an interdict is delivered in cases of future breach of the law. In this case, the regulations were signed into law in April and the case was initiated almost three months later.
“This court was at a complete loss regarding the powers that the court has to suspend an exercise of statutory powers. Particularly in an instance where the power was exercised many moons ago,” he said.
Employment & labour minister Nomakhosazana Meth said the judgment was a “victory for equity”.
“This ruling is a victory for equity, justice and the rule of law. It affirms that the department has acted within its legal mandate to advance transformation in the workplace,” she said. “We urge all employers to comply with the employment equity regulations and to prepare for the submission of their 2025 reports. The time for meaningful change is now.”
Neasa CEO Gerhard Papenfus told Business Day the organisation and Sakeliga will appeal the judgment directly to the top court. “Neasa is of the view that the judgment is so fundamentally flawed that it warrants a direct appeal to the Constitutional Court,” he said.
In engaging the top court’s jurisdiction without an appeal in lower courts, Papenfus said the judgment needed the apex court’s attention because it was a “travesty of justice”.
“The matter engages constitutional rights and the public interest and may well therefore attract the attention of the Constitutional Court. This travesty of justice cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged, and Neasa and Sakeliga will exhaust all legal avenues to have it overturned.”
Papenfus said his organisation and Sakeliga found the judgment was not in keeping with well-established legal principles.
Neasa and Sakeliga will exhaust all legal avenues to have the judgment overturned. This travesty of justice cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged.
— Gerhard Papenfus, Neasa CEO
“The decision by the court that it does not have the power to grant the relief sought is of immense concern as it is in direct contradiction to long-standing principles as to the court’s powers.
“Neasa is deeply concerned about the legal precedent this judgment will set and the impact it will have on the constitutional right to fair administrative action.”
Moshoana, who worked as a labour court judge for years, in his judgment cited a Constitutional Court judgment that said before an interim interdict is granted one of the most crucial requirements for the applicant to meet was reasonable apprehension of irreparable and imminent harm.
He was not convinced the applicants’ case met the test. He described the applicants’ case that the court has powers to suspend statutory powers to grant the relief as weak.
The state, in court, disputed the applicants’ arguments the regulations would cause mayhem and employers would be sanctioned should they not meet the targets. The department of employment & labour said there was a provision for employers to state reasons for not meeting targets.
According to the state, the regulations aim to achieve balance in workplaces taking into consideration how the apartheid system only considered white people for top roles, with Africans at the bottom of the food chain. The state argues the regulations give consideration to employment of people living with disabilities, equal pay for equal work, and male and female dynamics in workplaces.
There has been much debate about the private sector’s role in the transformation of the economic structure of the country in the past 31 years of democracy. The government, through its transformation agenda, maintains it aims to tackle the economic inequality introduced by the apartheid government’s racist laws, which prevented Africans from having the same economic prospects as whites.
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