As Parliament closed this week for its year-end recess, several key Bills — on child welfare and justice, communal land rights, sexual offences and others — remain pending.
And the long-awaited Mineral and Petroleum Royalty Bill, needed to give effect to the new mining rights regimen and the black economic empowerment charter, will only reach MPs when they return to work on January 26.
This puts parliamentarians under pressure: they need to complete the legislative workload before March next year, when this Parliament is expected to end ahead of elections. Otherwise those Bills lapse and incoming new MPs must deal afresh with draft laws.
Yet this week’s meeting of committee chairpersons discussed a possible short cut. If the new Parliament adopts a resolution to continue working on the outstanding legislation of the old Parliament, the process does not have to start from scratch.
Two key child-centred laws could be affected: the Child Justice Bill, aimed at keeping minors from incarceration, and the Children’s Bill, aimed at ensuring minors do not fall through the cracks of the social welfare system.
Seven years in the making, the latter Bill was finally tabled in Parliament and accepted for this session although it had missed the August 1 submission deadline. Heated exchanges are expected when the law is processed next year. Child rights activists have sharply criticised it for falling short of its intentions and for being rushed.
The Sexual Offences Bill could also be affected. It broadens the definition of rape to include that of men. And the Communal Land Rights Bill, which rewrites ownership in traditional areas and gives women land rights, is likely to be finalised only next year.
Although the National Assembly passed several key laws in the current term, not all could be approved before recess by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP). Thus the president can only sign them into force next year.
Still to be signed are the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Bill, which criminalises the bribe giver, even if such gratuities are only promised, as well as the taker, and the controversial anti-terrorism legislation — now known as the Protection of Constitutional Democracy against Terrorism and Related Activities Bill.
But the path is clear for the establishment of a new social grants system. Parliament passed both the South African Social Security Agency Bill, which establishes a national body to pay grants, and the Social Assistance Bill, which introduces an inspectorate to guard against fraud and set national norms for grant administration.
Other laws that have completed the parliamentary process include:
l Another amendment to the Electoral Laws Amendment Bill, passed in October, to allow all South Africans temporarily abroad to cast their ballots instead of only giving the opportunity to state officials, as initially envisaged;
l Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Bill, which sets out national norms and initiatives to democratise such rule;
l National Gambling Bill, which replaces the 1996 Act, and establishes a national inspectorate and norms for the R7-billion industry and provides measures to limit the negative social impact by, for example, allowing the court-ordered exclusion of compulsive gamblers from casinos;
l Liquor Bill, after it was referred to a mediation committee because of a technical amendment in the NCOP which the National Assembly could not approve as required under parliamentary procedure.