NPA AMENDMENT BILL AN INTERIM MEASURE?

NPA AMENDMENT BILL AN INTERIM MEASURE?

• 11 September 2023
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

According to Justice & Constitutional Development Deputy Minister John Jeffery, the recently tabled National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) Amendment Bill may only be a temporary intervention pending Anti-Corruption Advisory Council recommendations for strengthening prevailing institutional arrangements. Appointed in August 2022, the council hopes to have competed its work ‘by next year’.

The Deputy Minister made these remarks on 8 September 2023 during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Justice & Correctional Services Committee.

He also alluded to the possibility of establishing an ‘anti-state capture and corruption commission’ and a ‘public procurement anti-corruption agency’. This was nevertheless noting the importance of ensuring that any proposed new institutions ‘fit in’, especially given that there are already ‘quite effective’ agencies in the ‘existing architecture of law enforcement’. In that regard, Jeffery expressly mentioned the Special Investigating Unit.

Against that backdrop, he described the Bill’s focus as ‘beefing up the capacity of what is already there in the (Investigating) Directorate’. This was noting that, having been established by presidential proclamation, the directorate could, in theory, be disestablished the same way. This has:

• created a sense of impermanence
• made it ‘difficult to attract investigators’, and
• left the directorate dependent on ‘secondments’.

The Bill seeks to address this.

The Deputy Minister used the opportunity to draw attention to a two media statements issued by the Democratic Alliance (DA) on private members’ Bills intended to deal with similar issues but yet to materialise.

The first statement was issued in July 2021 and announced the imminent introduction of legislation to establish an ‘anti-corruption commission’ as ‘a new, independent Chapter 9 institution’. At the time, two private members’ Bills were envisaged: one to amend the Constitution and another to provide for the commission’s composition, powers and functions.

In March 2022, the DA issued a second statement – this time alluding to plans for ‘accelerating the introduction’ of a ‘comprehensive anti-corruption commission private member's Bill’.

Jeffery expressed hope that – as a ‘stop gap’ measure allowing members of the advisory council time to ‘do their work’ – the NPA Amendment Bill will be processed as a matter of urgency.

• NPA Amendment Bill
• committee meeting video recording
• July 2021 media statement
• March 2022 media statement

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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