PREVENTION & COMBATING OF HATE CRIMES & HATE SPEECH BILL: UPDATE

PREVENTION & COMBATING OF HATE CRIMES & HATE SPEECH BILL: UPDATE

• 03 March 2023
• Justice & Constitutional Development
• SA Legal Academy

The National Assembly’s Justice & Correctional Services Committee has completed its work on the Prevention & Combating of Hate Crimes & Hate Speech Bill, to which it has made certain changes. These are explained in a report recently tabled in the House, although the ‘A’ version to which it refers is not available.

However, a working document presented to the committee on 21 February provides further insight into the process of arriving at the amendments. This is noting that two options were proposed for most amendments considered at the time. According to Parliamentary Monitoring records, except in the case of sub-clause 4(2)(d), the first option was preferred where two were suggested.

Sub-clause 4(2)(d) Option 2 provides that the provisions of sub-section 4(1) ‘do not apply in respect of anything done as contemplated in (that) sub-section … if it is done in good faith in the course of engagement in any bona fide … interpretation and proselytising or espousing of any religious conviction, tenet, belief, teaching, doctrine or writings by a religious organisation or an individual in public or private, that does not advocate hatred that constitutes incitement to cause physical harm, based on one or more of the grounds’.

• committee report (page 38 of the papers)
• working document  
• Prevention & Combating of Hate Crimes & Hate Speech Bill as tabled in Parliament in 2018

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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