MARRIAGE BILL TABLED (READY FOR FAST TRACKING?)

MARRIAGE BILL TABLED (READY FOR FAST TRACKING?)

• 14 December 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

The Marriage Bill was formally introduced in Parliament within hours of the required explanatory summary’s publication in the Government Gazette. By then – pending certification by the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser – a draft Bill had already been submitted to both Houses for planning and information purposes.

This flurry of activity tends to suggest that the Bill has been prioritised as a piece of key legislation to be passed before Parliament rises for the 2024 elections. According to a recently published first term programme that could be as early as the end of March 2024.

A memorandum on the Bill’s objects notes that, among other things, it seeks to:

• ‘rationalise’ the legislation on ‘various types of marriages’, and
• provide for the requirements of monogamous and polygamous marriages.

Once passed, enacted and operationalised, it will repeal the Marriage Act, 1961 and several other statutes, including the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, 1998, and the Civil Union Act, 2006. In that context, the proposed new piece of legislation provides for the recognition of all marriages concluded not only in terms of those Acts but also marriages solemnised ‘in line with Sharia law and other religious belief or practices’.

• Bill
• parliamentary papers
• SA Legal Academy article on the draft Bill submitted to Parliament on 13 December 2023
• parliamentary programme (1st term 2024)

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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