state of emergency in any or every part. of the country and to rule by
proclamation, if it considered that the safety of the public or the mainte-
nance of public order was seriously threatened and that the ordinary law
was inadequate to preserve it. Most of those repressive laws barred the
courts from inquiring into the ways in which officialsused their delegated
powers. Although some judges sought to protect individuals by finding
humane interpretations in the laws, their capacity to do so was very limited.
To administer the laws of apartheid, the bureaucracy grew enormously.
By 1977, about 540,000 Whites were employed in the public sector (in-
cluding the central, provincial, and homeland governments, the local au-
thorities, the statutory public bodies, the railways and harbors service, and
the postal service), and Afrikaners occupied more than 90 percent of the
top positions. 'lbe
vast majority of the white bureaucrats were ardent
supporters of apartheid. Most of the black bureaucrats, numbering about
820,000, were reliable servants of the regime on which they depended for
their livelihood.s?
To enforce the laws of apartheid, the government had powerful re-
sources. Few black civilians were licensed to carry firearms, whereas most