Part of the legislation during the apartheid era, the National Party introduced it to enforce racial segregation, and was part of a deliberate process to remove all non-white people from the voters' roll and revoke the Cape Qualified Franchise system.

This act was declared invalid by the Supreme Court when challenged in the case of Harris v Minister of the Interior 1952(2) SA 428(AD); this gave rise to the Coloured vote constitutional crisis.

This case was one of many where South Africa's parliamentary sovereignty enabled the passing of laws without being subject to judicial review on substantive grounds.

Arguably this silencing of the judiciary allowed the Apartheid state to become further entrenched in the legal sphere of South Africa.

This council could make laws on finance, local government, education, community welfare and pensions, rural settlements and agriculture which affected coloured people.