Each of the nine provincial legislatures elects ten members to this council for five year terms. The National Council of Provinces has special powers to protect regional interests, including the safeguarding of cultural and linguistic traditions of ethnic minorities. The judicial branch is a tiered system that includes the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court of Appeals, the High Courts, and the Magistrate Courts. Then and Now After 1948, the National Party bonded itself to the apartheid ideology. According to the doctrine of apartheid each race and nation is to be kept apart so it can develop along its own inherent lines.
Interracial contacts are to be avoided, and it is assumed that races are inherently unequal.
This decision plunged South African politics into a dark age, arising out of the conviction of a few prominent leaders. They had found a formula to ensure the future of the white minority into the next century. The current government has addressed this problem and is slowly turning South African politics around. By the end of 1990 the remnants of traditional social segregation had largely disappeared, and people of all races were making common use of public facilities. Currently, the main obstacle impeding constitutional negotiations is continued violence between racial factions.