{"id":378549,"date":"2026-08-14T21:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/378549\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T21:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T21:42:14","slug":"what-south-african-law-says-about-hijabs-and-firearm-licences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/378549\/","title":{"rendered":"What South African law says about hijabs and firearm licences"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Muslim social worker’s firearm licence application was recently rejected<\/a>, and she was told that because she was wearing the hijab in the application photo, “they may not accept it”. But what do the Constitution, SAPS requirements and regulations say and has something like this happened before?<\/p>\n

South African legislation does not appear to list wearing a hijab or other religious head covering as a disqualifying factor for obtaining a firearm licence.<\/p>\n

The Firearms Control Act 60 of 2000 lists the requirements applicants must meet to obtain the necessary competency certificate and firearm licence. These include requirements relating to competency, suitability and the circumstances in which a firearm may be possessed.<\/p>\n

It should be noted that the Act does not identify a religious head covering as a ground for refusing an application.<\/p>\n

If we look at SAPS’s published requirements for a new firearm licence, it requires applicants to submit two recent passport-size colour photographs with a neutral background, required identification, competency certificate and supporting documentation.<\/p>\n

The published requirements do not state that applicants are prohibited from wearing a religious head covering.<\/p>\n

The issue is not entirely new.<\/p>\n

In a March 2021 case almost identical to this one, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police demanded answers after a Muslim woman alleged that her firearm licence application had been refused because she wore a headscarf in her application photograph.<\/p>\n

The committee described the allegation as one of religious discrimination and said that, if true, it would be contrary to the principles contained in the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n

The then committee chairperson, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, said the allegation raised concerns about religious discrimination and the constitutional principles of human dignity and freedom.<\/p>\n

What does the Constitution say?<\/p>\n

The Constitution provides several protections that are relevant to the matter.<\/p>\n

Section 9 of the Bill of Rights provides for equality and states that everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law.<\/p>\n

It also prohibits unfair discrimination by the state, including discrimination on grounds such as religion, conscience and belief.<\/p>\n

Then we have Section 15 that deals specifically with freedom of religion, belief and opinion. It states that everyone has the right to freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief and opinion.<\/p>\n

The Constitution is the supreme law of South Africa, meaning government action and legislation must comply with its provisions.<\/p>\n

This does not mean that every person who applies for a firearm licence is automatically entitled to one. Firearm ownership remains regulated by the Firearms Control Act, and applicants must meet the statutory requirements.<\/p>\n

However, the requirements must be applied consistently with constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

This distinction is important because a firearm licence is not a constitutional right in itself.<\/p>\n

The issue is whether a person who otherwise meets the legal requirements can be treated differently because of a protected characteristic such as religion.<\/p>\n

Does SAPS’s photograph requirement ban a hijab?<\/p>\n

SAPS’s published firearm-licensing requirements refer to two passport-size colour photographs with a neutral background. They do not expressly state that a hijab or other religious head covering is prohibited.<\/p>\n

Similarly, The Firearms Control Act and its regulations establish the application and competency framework but do not identify a hijab as a ground for disqualification.<\/p>\n

At the same time, the precise photographic requirements applied by an individual Designated Firearms Officer may need to be distinguished from the substantive legal requirements for obtaining a licence.<\/p>\n

IOL<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Muslim social worker’s firearm licence application was recently rejected, and she was told that because she was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[52],"tags":[151697,2734,147444,69312,3540,6325,4735,84180,180940,5383,131,3513,46467],"class_list":["post-378549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-africa","tag-bill-of-rights","tag-constitution","tag-firearms-control-act-60","tag-hijab","tag-iol","tag-muslim","tag-parliament","tag-portfolio-committee-on-police","tag-requirements-applicants","tag-saps","tag-south-africa","tag-south-african","tag-worker"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117096044922486803","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}