LEGISLATION: ISSUES UNDERPINNING LAPSED PRIVATE MEMBERS BILLS TO BE ADDRESSED ELSEWHERE?

LEGISLATION: ISSUES UNDERPINNING LAPSED PRIVATE MEMBERS BILLS TO BE ADDRESSED ELSEWHERE?

• 28 July 2024
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: On 30 July 2024, The DA’s Deputy Chief Whip, Baxolile Nodada, issued a media statement on his party’s intention to revive three lapsed Bills intended to stabilise coalition governments.

Best available information tends to suggest that the following lapsed Bills from the previous Parliament may not be revived:

• Al Jama’ah’s Maintenance Amendment Bill (intended to improve access to relief for vulnerable maintenance applicants)
• the DA’s Constitution 19th Amendment Bill (intended to limit the number of motions of no confidence within a given timeframe in Parliament and the provincial legislatures)
• the DA’s Constitution 20th Amendment Bill (intended to establish an independent 'cyber commissioner')
• the DA’s Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill (intended to limit the number of motions of no confidence per annum in executive mayors, deputy executive mayors, speakers and whips)
• the DA’s Local Government: Municipal Structures 2nd Amendment Bill (intended to provide for the introduction of an electoral threshold when calculating the allocation of seats in municipal councils)
• the DA’s Prevention of Illegal Eviction from & Unlawful Occupation of Land Amendment Bill (intended to regulate illegal land occupation and ensuing activities)
• the DA’s Remote Gambling Bill (intended to regulate remote gambling), and
• the DA’s Remuneration of Public Office Bearers Amendment Bill (intended to improve transparency in the presidential process of determining allowances, benefits and tools of trade for Cabinet members and Deputy Ministers).

According to Parliamentary Monitoring Group records of a meeting of the National Assembly’s Justice & Correctional Services Committee in March 2023, at the time a Maintenance Amendment Bill possibly addressing the issues concerned was expected to be developed following the release of a South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) report on its review of the Maintenance Act. The report was published on 26 March 2024 – a development likely to have come to the attention of recently appointed Social Development Deputy Minister Ganief Hendricks, who tabled the lapsed Maintenance Amendment Bill.

A statement on the possible way forward regarding important issues underpinning the lapsed DA Bills would be helpful. This is especially given the DA’s role in the seventh administration’s government of national unity.

• National Assembly minutes on Bills already revived
• NCOP order paper listing Bills likely to be revived
• SALRC report
• SA Legal Academy article on the SALRC report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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