CHILDREN’S AMENDMENT BILL: COMMITTEE’S BEST INTENTIONS SCUPPERED

CHILDREN’S AMENDMENT BILL: COMMITTEE’S BEST INTENTIONS SCUPPERED

• 01 December 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

A recent decision by the National Assembly’s Social Development Committee to declare Democratic Alliance (DA) representative Bridget Masango’s Children’s Amendment Bill ‘undesirable’ has drawn attention to several important issues.

Tabled in July 2023 as a private member’s Bill, the proposed new piece of legislation sought to address concerns about the poor standard of partial care provided by many facilities catering for six children or fewer. As things now stand, such facilities are not required to register and are therefore neither regulated nor inspected.

Masango’s Bill was reluctantly declared undesirable and rejected in the context of:

• the ‘implementation challenges’ associated with ‘financial and human resource constraints’, and
• the limited time available to process it before Parliament rises for the 2024 general elections.

A motion of ‘desirability’ is the standard procedure to which every tabled Bill is subjected at committee level. In this case, it followed two meetings on the Bill during which its merits and shortcomings were discussed at length, with input from the Department of Social Development.

It is clear from a YouTube recording of the meeting at which the Bill was rejected that committee members across the political spectrum unreservedly supported the spirit of the Bill and Masango’s noble intentions in tabling it.

The committee’s legacy report to the seventh democratic Parliament will include recommendations for a more comprehensive Children’s Amendment Bill not only dealing with unregulated partial care facilities, but also addressing aspects of the 2020 Children’s Amendment Bill removed before it was passed by both Houses.

The revised Bill was enacted in December 2022, since when certain sections have come into force – as SA Legal Academy has already reported.

Unfortunately, because of inadequate advice from a member of parliamentary legal services, the committee failed in its efforts to develop legislation addressing issues covered in clauses removed from 2020 Bill. This is according to Parliamentary Monitoring Group records of meetings held in May 2023. Had the process of developing that committee Bill continued, it would probably have taken account of issues raised in Masango’s.

The mood of the meeting at which Masango’s Bill was declared ‘undesirable’ was cordial, as can be seen from the YouTube recording. However, a DA media statement reacting to the decision paints a different picture. Why?

• Masango’s Children’s Amendment Bill (reluctantly rejected)
• YouTube recording of the meeting at which this decision was taken
• DA media statement
• 2020 Children’s Amendment Bill (as originally tabled)
• SA Legal Academy report on Children’s Amendment Act, 2022

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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