Row erupts over Bill

TRADITIONAL COURTS: LEGISLATION EXCLUDES WOMEN, LGBTQI RIGHTS

‘Shocking and bewildering’ that clauses protecting them were removed.

The ANC has come under sharp criticism from its ally the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for excluding all gender and gay and lesbian rights protection clauses from the Traditional Courts Bill before parliament.

Cosatu has called for the Bill to be halted while giving time for the consultation on the omitted clauses that the federation demanded be reinstated.

It said as it stood, the Bill was fatally flawed and simply unconstitutional. Cosatu vowed to engage President Cyril Ramaphosa, the ANC, ministers of justice and of women, the speaker and chief whip in parliament to intervene as a matter of urgency.

Ironically, the legislation was earlier rejected by the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for not catering for the rights of women and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning and intersex community (LGBTQI).

Cosatu’s parliamentary coordinator, Matthew Parks, lashed out at ANC parliamentarians in the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services for being behind the move to remove the gender and human rights protection clause.

Parks hit out at the ANC MPs serving in the ruling party’s study group on justice and correctional services.

The Bill initially contained crucial concessions, mainly suggested by the civil society organisations during their interaction with the justice ministry, that protected the women and LGBTQI people, including the right to opt out of traditional courts and protection of the rights of both men and women who did not want a traditional court imposed upon them. The bodies also demanded that traditional courts be gender representative and that such courts should not discriminate on the basis of gender or sexual orientation.

“It is simply shocking and bewildering that the ANC MPs in the [portfolio committee] have decided to side with traditional leaders and remove all the clauses seeking to protect women and LGBTQI persons from the Bill,” Parks said.

He said the concessions were made by the ministry of justice after extensive engagements with civil society.

The previous version of the Bill was overwhelmingly rejected by the NCOP for failing to deal with these rights.

“It’s tantamount to negotiating in bad faith by the ANC justice committee study group,” Parks said.

According to Cosatu, the concessions, while not perfect, were progressive and critical to protect women and the LGBTQI community. The federation expressed disappointment that such key human rights provisions had now been removed by the ANC MPs at the behest of traditional leaders.

“Cosatu calls on parliament to halt this Bill,” Parks said. “The ANC will be delusional to believe that the votes of a couple hundred traditional leaders are more important the votes of millions of women living in traditional areas.”

But Mathole Motshekga, chair of the justice and correctional services portfolio committee, denied that the Bill excluded gender and LGBTQI rights

“Everybody is catered for in the legislation, but we don’t have to repeat what is in the constitution,” Motshekga said.

Cosatu calls upon parliament to halt this Bill.