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HATE CRIMES: FINALISATION OF DRAFT REGULATIONS IMMINENT?
- 28 September 2026
- Justice & Constitutional Development
- SA Legal Academy
Final regulations under the 2023 Prevention & Combating of Hate Crimes & Hate Speech Act could soon be submitted to Parliament for pre-publication approval – as required by the Act’s sub-section 10(2) (a). According to Justice & Constitutional Development Deputy Minister Andries Nel, they are now with ‘the Ministry’ and are ‘under consideration’. He shared these observations in an address to delegates at the second quarter plenary of a national task team on sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics. The task team was established in March 2011.
In the Deputy Minister’s view, finalising the regulations will be ‘an important step’ in the process of operationalising the Act – tending to suggest that its full implementation could be a long time coming.
As SA Legal Academy has already reported, once in force (among other things) the Act will:
- give effect to constitutional and international obligations regarding measures intended to curb racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance
- make hate crimes and hate speech criminal offences
- enable the prosecution of persons alleged to have committed those offences
- provide for appropriate sentences, and
- provide for related reporting and administration matters.
At the time of their release in November 2025 for public comment, the draft regulations focused on the requirements to be met by:
- the department’s director-general
- the South African Police Service
- national and provincial directors of public prosecutions
- clerks of court, and
- High Court registrars.
Please click the links below for more information:
- Deputy Minister’s speech
- Act
- task team website
- November 2025 draft regulations (presumably since revised)
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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