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ELECTORAL MATTERS AMENDMENT BILL HEADS TO PARLIAMENT
- 07 December 2023
- Electoral Law
- SA Legal Academy
Please note: According to recently circulated parliamentary papers, the Bill was tabled in Parliament within hours of its explanatory summary’s publication in the Government eGazette and on the same day.
An explanatory summary of the Electoral Matters Amendment Bill has been gazetted in anticipation of its formal introduction in Parliament. This follows Cabinet’s approval of the Bill during its meeting on 29 November 2023.
To ensure that provision is made for independent candidates across all legislation dealing with or affected by elections to the National Assembly and provincial legislatures, the Bill will propose amendments to:
- the Electoral Commission Act, 1996
- the Electoral Act, 1998
- the Electronic Communications Act, 2005
- the Financial Management of Parliament & Provincial Legislatures Act, 2009, and
- the Political Party Funding Act, 2018.
According to the explanatory summary, most proposed amendments to the first four Acts listed above are largely consequential to material amendments envisaged for the Political Party Funding Act. These include:
- provisions seeking to ‘preclude’ the Independent Electoral Commission from accepting donations to a renamed ‘multi-party and independents democracy fund’ should there be reason to believe such donations are ‘the proceeds of crime’
- provisions seeking to make it an offence to:
- donate funds in expectation of ‘the award of benefits or relaxation of conditions’
- donate funds in a manner that allows a political party to circumvent the provisions of Chapter 3 (dealing with prohibited donations and disclosure obligations)
- accept a donation intended to circumvent the provisions of Chapter 3, or to
- accept a donation for personal gain, and
- provisions seeking to change the formula for the allocation of fund monies ‘on a proportional and equitable basis, in respect of the upper limit of donations and the disclosure limit for donations’.
Bills are occasionally tabled while Parliament is in recess – possibly with the intention of processing them speedily, as soon as the committees begin their work in earnest.
- explanatory summary
- Cabinet media statement
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch