Deputy Police Minister Maggie Sotyu says that South Africa's courts are racist because black criminals receive harsher sentences than their white counterparts, Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday.
Sotyu said that a white farmer who dragged a black farmworker behind his bakkie got off with a fine of R10 000.
In contrast, when a black worker killed a white farmer he was jailed for life.
"So we are saying that those are politics of racism because our courts need to be empowered, they need to be aware that we are now in (the) new South Africa," she added.
Sotyu, a former chairperson of Parliament's portfolio committee on police, was appointed deputy minister in President Jacob Zuma's major Cabinet reshuffle ten days ago.
She reportedly made the remarks after a briefing to MPs on Tuesday on the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation's report on violent crime in South Africa.
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