Judicial Matters Third Amendment Bill [B53-2013]: introduced & adoption

Meeting Summary

Parliamentary Monitoring Group did not attend the meeting, which took place at a time not able to be determined in advance, as the National Assembly was requested to grant Members permission to leave the full-day plenary session “at some point”, in order to finalise the Bill. However, the following information emerged from the previous debates in respect of the matter.

The Judicial Matters Third Amendment Bill, a Committee Bill, was drafted by the Parliamentary Legal Office as a result of a problem with the tagging of the Judicial Matters First Amendment Bill. The First Amendment Bill contained six clauses which the Joint Tagging Mechanism had ruled as having section 76 tagging implications. In view of the urgency of passing that First Amendment Bill, it was agreed that those six clauses would be rejected in order to allow the revised First Amendment Bill then to be re-tagged as a section 75 Bill.

These six rejected clauses would then be incorporated into a Judicial Matters Third Amendment Bill, which would be tagged as a section 76 Bill. The six clauses had been previously published for public comment when incorporated into the First Amendment Bill, but were being published again on the Parliamentary website. The Third Amendment Bill was presented to Members, who had full knowledge, in advance, of the content and implications of the clauses, and were in support of them. Members therefore adopted the Bill, and the Committee Report, and referred it to the House (the three-day rule having been suspended) for adoption.