DECRIMINALISING SEX WORK

• In his 2023/24 budget vote speech, Justice and Constitutional Development Deputy Minister John Jeffrey confirmed that the draft Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Bill released in 2022 for public comment:
  • is to be revised to address concerns raised by the Office of the State Law Adviser about its constitutionality
  • must provide for the regulation of sex work if it is to pass constitutional muster, and
  • is not expected to be ready for tabling in Parliament until after the 2024 general elections.

 

CORRECTIONAL SERVICES

• A draft Correctional Services Amendment Bill was tabled in Parliament immediately following the publication of a backdated explanatory summary of its contents. The certified Bill was tabled a day later but was not available at the time of writing.
• According to a media statement on the Cabinet meeting at which the Bill was approved, it responds to a December 2020 Constitutional Court judgment on the independence of the Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services.
• According to the Bill’s explanatory summary, it also seeks to align the Act with ‘ratified international legal instruments’ by defining the terms ‘sexual violation’ and ‘torture’.

 

COURT RULES

• The Rules Board for Courts of Law has called for public comments on draft amendments to Uniform Rule 46A, which deals with execution against residential immovable property. The amendments now being proposed seek to provide for:
  • instances where the property concerned is residential but is owned by a judgment debtor such as a trust or company (to which, as ‘an artificial entity’, the constitutional right to adequate housing does not apply)
  • what a court should do where a reserve price set by the court has not been achieved at a sale in execution, and
  • ‘the procedure for bringing the reconsideration of the reserve price back to court’.

 

COMPANIES AMENDMENT BILL

• According to Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel’s 2023/24 budget vote speech, a Companies Amendment Bill dealing with the ‘disclosure of wage differentials’ will be submitted to Cabinet ‘within three months’.
• It is not clear from the Minister’s speech if the Bill will include provisions ‘making it easier for companies to comply with legislation’, which are apparently still being finalised.

 

Prepared by Pam Saxby