ATC131111: Report of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development on the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill [B7 – 2013], (National Assembly – section 75), dated 11 November 2013

Justice and Correctional Services

Report of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development on the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill [B7 – 2013], (National Assembly – section 75), dated 11 November 2013

The Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development, having considered the subject of the Judicial Matters Amendment Bill [B7B – 2013] (National Assembly – section 75), referred to it and classified by the Joint Tagging Mechanism as a section 75 Bill, reports the Bill with amendments [B7C – 2013]:

The Committee wishes to report further:

1.     The Bill was tabled with the proposal that it be tagged as section 75 Bill but was classified as a section 76 Bill by the Joint Tagging Mechanism (JTM) as the Bill is argued to contain certain provisions that affect the concurrent powers of provinces set out in Schedule 4 of the Constitution, 1996.

2.     The Bill amends numerous acts, most of which are administered by the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development and are intended to address practical and technical issues of a non-contentious nature. The Committee is of the view that the procedure contained in section 76 of the Constitution does not apply to the Bill in its entirety but nonetheless finds itself bound by the JTM’s findings.

3.     In order to expedite the passage of those provisions of the Bill to which the section 76 procedure would not apply, the Committee rejected clauses 17, 36, 39, 42, 43, 46 and 49(3) which were argued to possibly affect the concurrent powers of the provinces in substantial measure.

4.     The Committee is of the view that the rules of Parliament do not adequately allow for the input of committees to the JTM before a Bill is tagged and asks that the National Assembly consider amending the rules for this to happen in future.

Report to be considered

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