Defence Laws Repeal and Amendment Draft Bill 2014

The Department of Defence and Military Veterans intends introducing the Defence Laws Repeal and Amendment Draft Bill, 2014, in the National Assembly shortly. The explanatory summary of the Bill has been published in accordance with Rule 241(c) of the Rules of the National Assembly, and comments are requested.

Bill seeks to repeal certain obsolete or redundant defence laws; to amend the Castle Management Act, 1993, so as to omit an unconstitutional provision.

Comments can be emailed to Mr Ntethelelo Kumalo at [email protected] Closing date to be confirmed.

Enquiries can be directed to Mr Ntethelelo Kumalo on tel (012) 355 5726 / (021) 787 6085 or cell 072 580 9031.

Background
The South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) has been mandated with the task of revising the South African statute book with a view to identifying and recommending the repeal or amendment of laws that are inconsistent with the equality clause in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, or redundant and obsolete In Discussion Paper 123 of the SALRC the following is mentioned: "Statutory law revision is the review of status to determine whether they need updating or are still relevant and enjoy practical application. The purpose of the review is to modernise and simplify those statutes that need modernising or updating and to reduce the size of the statute book to the benefit of legal professionals and all other parties who make use of it. It also ensures people are not misled by obsolete laws on the statute book which seem to be relevant or 'live' law. If legislation features on the statute book and is referred to in text-books, users reasonably enough assume those statutes still serve a purpose. Legislation identified or repeal is selected on the basis that it is no longer of practical utility. Usually this is or because these laws no longer have any legal effect on technical grounds, because they are spent, unnecessary or obsolete. But sometimes they are selected because, although strictly speaking they do continue to have legal effect, the purposes for which they were enacted, either no longer exist, or are currently being met by alternative means.".The SALRC identified a number of laws administered by the Department of Defence and Military Veterans that are obsolete or redundant and that need to be repealed. The Bill therefore seeks to repeal those laws.