ABSTRACT
The pass laws were formally repealed in July 1986. They have been regarded for decades as a lynch-pin of the system of apartheid, since they comprised the discriminatory legislative framework, the cumbersome bureaucratic apparatus and the vicious daily harassment through which access for black South Africans to jobs and housing in the ‘white’ urban areas was rigidly circumscribed. Their abolition was accordingly welcomed in many quarters as a significant step along the road to reform.
