OLDER PERSONS AMENDMENT BILL TO BE REVIVED

Newly appointed Social Development Minister Nokuzola Tolashe’s budget vote speech has listed several pieces of legislation to be revived, having lapsed when the previous Parliament rose for the May 2024 elections. One is the Older Persons Amendment Bill, a ‘B’ version of which was passed by the National Assembly on 9 May 2024 and is now ready to be considered by the NCOP.

The two other pieces of legislation to which the Minister referred have not, in fact, lapsed:

  • a Children’s Amendment Bill tabled in 2020 was passed and enacted two years later, since when it has been partially commenced, while
  • a draft Victim Support Services Bill developed by the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development was published in 2020 but never tabled in Parliament.

The Older Persons’ Amendment Bill was introduced in May 2022 and seeks to ‘ensure that older persons are provided with quality services and are afforded the necessary protection by society, including community-based and residential care facilities’. This is according to a memorandum on the Bill’s objects, which also draws attention to provisions:

  • ‘relating to the monitoring and evaluation of all services to older persons’
  • intended to facilitate ‘the removal of older persons to temporary safe care without a court order’, and
  • strengthening ‘existing implementation and compliance measures’.

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Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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