Obsolete Laws Bill addresses apartheid legacy
Justice minister Yvonne Dausab has said the Repeal of Obsolete Laws Bill, being debated in the National Assembly, would repeal 71 obsolete laws.
Some of these laws have no place in the current constitutional dispensation, she said.
Responding to members of parliament contributions, Dausab said the tabling of the Bill has been a culmination of three years of research and consultations with offices, ministries, agencies and stakeholders.
Additionally, she said the report, prepared by the Law Reform and Development Commission, was provided to the table office for distribution to members on the date the Bill was tabled.
The report, she said, is a detailed summary of each of the laws, the applicability of each law to South West Africa, the effect of transfer of administration to South West Africa on each law, amendments and status of these laws, as well as recommendations for repeal.
“The team responsible for finalising the bill ensured that in order to not have any lacunae [gap] in the law, all those laws without ‘replacements’ were retained,” Dausab said.
She said this is why some laws initially contained in the report were recommended for repeal, such as the Water Research Act, 1971 (Act No. 34 of 1971), State Repudiation (Cultura 2000) Act, 1991 (Act No. 32 of 1991) and the Sunday Trading Proclamation.
Other Bills, she said, included the 1919 (Proclamation No. 12 of 1919) Shop Hours Ordinance, 1939 (Ordinance No. 15 of 1939) and the Protection of Fundamental Rights Act, 1988 (Act No. 16 of 1988) do not appear in the current Bill.
“This is because the team could not locate other laws that sufficiently address those specific issues,” she added.
However, she said, there are also some laws that do not need replacements.
“An example is the Natives Minimum Wage Proclamation, 1944 (Proclamation No. 1 of 1944) as indicated in the report,” she said, adding that the law was enacted for the sole purpose of racial segregation and in support of the apartheid regime.
“Such a law has no place within our current constitutional dispensation,” she stresses.