REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Parliament scrambles to tie up loose ends before elections By Marianne Merten marianne_merten
There is a parliamentary business that must be done. It includes adopting the fiscal framework and the Division of Revenue Bill that actually transfers the Budget allocations to provinces and councils. The National Assembly adopted this bill 211 votes for and six against on Wednesday.
That includes the Traditional Courts Bill, whose passage through the National Assembly on Tuesday illustrates the risks of leaving lawmaking to the last minute amid the pressure in an election year. The controversial Bill effectively ties rural communities to traditional courts and is widely seen as an ANC sop to traditional leaders in the run-up to the 2019 elections.
It’s always been a controversial bill. Two previous iterations failed legislative muster. The bill was workshopped by academics, traditional leaders and civil society under the auspices of the justice ministry to include an opt-out clause, and was. The opt-out clause was dropped by late 2018, when after a controversial public hearing process that saw traditional leaders participate actively although they are not members of the committee. The committee approved the Bill.
consultative meeting between the political leadership from various ministries and leaders of the National House of Traditional Leaders and other key representatives from the traditional leadership sector”. The Traditional Courts Bill was on the agenda, as were traditional leaders’ powers, functions and tools of the trade.
Co-operative Governance said on 11 March that it had applied to the Constitutional Court for a 12-month extension.Although there was some confusion as to who was responsible to effect the order, that confusion has now been dealt with and we have now placed amendment bill back in Parliament. Although the ad hoc committee established to pursue this constitutional amendment in line with a decision of the House inheld meetings, there was simply no time to finish the work before Parliament rises later in March. On Wednesday the ad hoc committee decided to “recommend that the sixth Parliament be tasked with finalising the task of amending the Constitution”.
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