Bill referred back to provinces
A SURPRISE attempt to push through the controversial Traditional Courts Bill ground to a halt yesterday when the bill was referred back to the provinces for further discussion.
CAPE TOWN — A surprise attempt to push the controversial Traditional Courts Bill through a parliamentary committee ground to a halt yesterday when members of the committee referred the bill back to the provinces for further discussion.
The bill, which seeks to give traditional leaders authority to convene courts to decide both civil and criminal matters, stalled late last year.
This followed a raft of criticism that it infringed on the constitutional rights of women and denied those before the courts the right to legal representation.
There has been much speculation that President Jacob Zuma and the African National Congress (ANC) want the bill on the statute book as a sweetener for traditional leaders going into next year’s election.
A meeting of the National Council of Provinces’ security and constitutional development committee was supposed to get provincial votes on each clause of the bill.
Because the bill affects the provinces, it has to be processed in terms of section 76 of the constitution, meaning that the positions of all of the provincial legislatures need to be obtained.
When the committee’s proceedings began, the delegate for the Free State, Dennis Bloem, argued that five provinces were now opposed to the bill and therefore it should be “sent back”.
Gauteng delegate Amos Matila (ANC) agreed, saying that there were elements in the bill that were unconstitutional, that affected women’s rights, and that “it needs a lot of amendments and should go back to the provinces for further consultation and proposals”.
The delegations from KwaZuluNatal, Mpumalanga, the North West and the Western Cape all agreed with the proposals, with only the Eastern Cape saying they would be a waste of time.
The Rural Women’s Action Research programme at the Centre for Law and Society, University of Cape Town, said ahead of the meeting that the bill had suddenly reappeared on the agenda of the committee after almost a year of no movement. Programme researcher Thuto Thipe said: “The widespread opposition to the bill shows that no clause-by-clause discussion can fix what is fundamentally wrong with this bill — it has to be withdrawn in its entirety.”
Aninka Claassens, director of the Rural Women’s Action Research programme, said: “This is effectively the same bill as was first introduced to the National Assembly in 2008.
“This bill’s substantial content and the procedure followed in its drafting are beyond repair. In spite of its many flaws, the ANC seems intent on ramming it through,” she said.
“One can only assume that it aims to please traditional leaders in the run-up to the election next year. But this is a false promise, as this bill will not stand up to constitutional scrutiny,” Dr Claassens said.