THREE DRAFT BILLS SUBMITTED TO PARLIAMENT – TWO BY THE DA

THREE DRAFT BILLS SUBMITTED TO PARLIAMENT – TWO BY THE DA

• 04 April 2024
• Parliament
• SA Legal Academy

Please note: 1) On 5 April 2024, the Immigration Amendment Bill was formally tabled and published – 2) followed on 8 April 2024 by the DA's Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill and Local Government: Municipal Structures Second Amendment Bill. 

Parliamentary papers have confirmed that, on 20 and 26 March 2024 respectively, the DA’s Siviwe Gwarube submitted two draft Bills to the National Assembly, while Home Affairs Minister Aaron Motsoaledi submitted one to both Houses. Presumably, they will be formally tabled in South Africa’s seventh democratic Parliament after the 29 May elections – to be processed by new cohorts of political party representatives.

The Minister’s draft Immigration Amendment Bill was submitted in terms of parliamentary Joint Rule 159. This rule applies to Bills prepared by the executive and approved by Cabinet, which may be sent to the National Assembly and NCOP committees concerned for information and planning purposes before being certified by the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser and formally tabled.

The DA’s Local Government: Municipal Structures Amendment Bill and Local Government: Municipal Structures Second Amendment Bill were submitted to the National Assembly in terms of its Rule 276(2), which among other things requires an explanatory summary of the Bill concerned to have been gazetted well beforehand.

Explanatory summaries of the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill and Municipal Structures Second Amendment Bill were published in the Government Gazette in April and November 2023 respectively. On each occasion, stakeholders were invited to comment on what was envisaged at the time. This is noting that the two Bills’ shared overarching objective is to mitigate the potential for certain provisions in the principal statute to be abused by parties to a coalition government, thus making it unworkable.

An explanatory summary of the Immigration Amendment Bill was gazetted on 19 March 2024. Its purpose is to give effect to Constitutional Court judgments delivered on 29 June 2017 and 30 October 2023 in terms of which the principal statute must be amended to ensure that any illegal foreigner detained under section 34(1):

• ‘is brought before a court in person, within 48 hours from the time of his or her arrest’, enabling
• ‘the court to determine whether it is in the interests of justice to order further detention, for purposes of deportation’.

For more information, please click the links below:

• Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, explanatory summary
• Municipal Structures Second Amendment Bill, explanatory summary
• related parliamentary papers
• Immigration Amendment Bill, explanatory summary
• related parliamentary papers
• October 2023 Constitutional Court ruling

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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