Chairperson, colleagues, Members of Parliament, the SA Law Reform Commission is mandated to revise the South African Statute Book and to identify and recommend for repeal or amendment laws that are inconsistent with the equality clause in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa.
Order! Order, hon members! Order please. Continue, Minister.
In this regard, the commission conducted research and established that there were 2 800 Acts on the Statute Book and that 218 of these were administered by the Department of Transport. Of the 218 pieces of legislation identified as being statutes administered by the Department of Transport, the commission and the department identified 63 Acts that may be repealed wholly, and 19 Acts that may be partially repealed.
The Bill's first schedule seeks to repeal some railway construction Acts dating back to 1939. These Acts authorised the construction and equipment of railway lines at certain places in the country. Having achieved the purpose for which they were enacted, these Acts are now spent and can be repealed.
Schedule 2 seeks to repeal Acts that no longer serve any purpose, for example the Railways and Harbours Strike and Service Amendment Act of 1914. For example, section 15 is the only remaining provision of the Railway Expropriation Act of 1995, the other provisions having been repealed over the years. The application of section 15 depends on the existence of a provision in another Act, and that Act itself has been repealed. Thus, section 15 can no longer be applied and the Acts in question can be repealed.
The Portfolio Committee on Transport and the relevant stakeholders discussed further Acts listed in Schedule 1 of the Bill and approved 47 of those Acts as legislation that needed to be repealed totally. Within Schedule 2 provisions that stand to be repealed have either become obsolete or will become obsolete since the legislation they refer to stands to be repealed by virtue of Schedule 1. For example, the application of section 1 of the Railways and Harbours Service and Superannuation Fund Acts Amendment Act of 1930, which stands to be replaced, is dependent on a provision in another Act. Since that Act has already been repealed, the said section serves no purpose and can be repealed.
Furthermore, the Portfolio Committee on Transport, having discussed this Bill with the department and relevant stakeholders, has approved 14 Acts in Schedule 2. These fall into the category of those Acts that need to be repealed to a certain extent.
The Bill was published for comment in the Government Gazette in February 2009. Comments were received from Transnet, the Passenger Rail Agency of SA and the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser.
The state law advisers and the Department of Transport are of the opinion that this Bill must therefore be dealt with in accordance with the procedure established by section 75 of the Constitution. This is because it contains no provisions to which the procedure set out in section 74 or 76 of the Constitution applies.
Hon Chair, we therefore request that this House pass this Bill. I thank you. [Applause.]
Mr Chairperson, hon members, the Portfolio Committee on Transport processed the Transport Laws Repeal Bill. All political parties who are active in the Portfolio Committee on Transport adopted the Bill with no reservations.
The Department of Transport came to brief the Portfolio Committee on Transport on what this Bill sought to achieve. At the first briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Transport, the department came unprepared and presented the Portfolio Committee on Transport with a list of the transport laws that this Bill would repeal without outlining the provisions of such laws.
The Portfolio Committee on Transport found the failure to provide the provisions of the said Acts by the officials of the department unacceptable. This would have meant that members of the Portfolio Committee on Transport was expected by the Department of Transport to discuss the repealing of transport laws, the provisions of which the members would have had no understanding of as some of these transport laws were passed by previous parliaments and most of them during the apartheid era.
We commend the officials from the department who accepted this weakness and committed to presenting to the Portfolio Committee on Transport the provisions of the laws that this Bill seeks to repeal. That process was followed by public hearings. We received only two submissions on the Bill and held public hearings on them. Transnet submitted that Parliament should not repeal the following Acts: the Railway Construction Act, Act 57 of 1961; the Second Railway Construction Act, Act 58 of 1963; the Railway Construction Act, Act 5 of 1965; and the Railway Construction Act, Act 17 of 1966. Transnet argued that all these Acts referred to agreements concluded between the government of the Republic of South Africa and its Railways and Harbours Administration, hereinafter called "the Administration".
The said Acts specifically empowered "the Administration" to give effect to the respective agreements, a right that was ultimately transferred to Transnet in terms of the Legal Succession to the South African Transport Services Act, Act 9 of 1989.
All these agreements confer disposing rights on "the Administration" in respect of the railway line that is the subject of the Act in question. These disposing rights still appear to be in existence and their duration may be summarised as follows: the Railway Construction Act, Act 57 of 1961, expires in 2012; the Second Railway Construction Act, Act 58 of 1963, expires in 2013; the Railway Construction Act, Act 5 of 1965, expires in 2015; and the Railway Construction Act, Act 17 of 1966, expires in 2016.
Transnet submitted that the repeal of the four above-mentioned Acts should be delayed until the right in question has expired. The committee acceded to Transnet's submission. A second submission was made by a member of the public from Melmoth, Mr Bhekizenzo Ngobese. The Portfolio Committee on Transport commended Mr Ngobese for his courage and viewed him as an example of public participation in lawmaking. Mr Ngobese's submission was, however, more relevant to efforts to reduce the number of fatal accidents and the congestion of roads through speed limits.
The Portfolio Committee on Transport then resolved to defer the discussion on Mr Ngobese's submission to a time when the committee would engage in discussions on fatal accidents and the congestion of roads. The Portfolio Committee on Transport adopted the Bill.
We recommend that the House pass the Transport Laws Repeal Bill. I thank you. [Applause.]
Chair, as the Minister and the portfolio chair so competently explained, the Bill before us repeals some 51 Acts and only certain provisions of 14 Acts that required repealing. The Acts for repeal were identified in terms of the SA Law Commission's mandate to revise the South African Statute Book with a view to recommending, in conjunction with the Department of Transport, for repeal or amendment those Acts or provisions of Acts that are inconsistent with the equality clause in the Constitution, and are either redundant or obsolete. Many of these old laws had connotations of the old apartheid regime and were identified as no longer having legal effect. The task could not have been all that easy considering that the Acts go back to 1914 - actually, Minister, not 1936 - and are not always readily available through electronic media. In many cases the old Acts had to be sourced from parliamentary archives. The portfolio committee, to a certain degree, had similar problems, because "taking the word" of officials and the state law advisers for some of the Acts was clearly not the correct way of doing diligent oversight. But, needless to say, we managed to work our way through them.
Coupled to this was the limited response to the public hearings. The portfolio committee chair mentioned that there was only one or two people that came forward for comment since the Bill was gazetted some months previously. The only real comments of any note came from Transnet. Their subsequent interaction with the portfolio committee, as was mentioned, led to four Railway Construction Acts previously being considered for repeal, being excluded in this current Bill. The reason for their exclusion was that these Acts still have disposing rights for a varying period ranging from 2011 to 2016.
Under the circumstances, it was decided that these Acts should, therefore, run their course and as they expired we would repeal them. It was interesting to note that many of the removed Acts had supply links to manufacturers that are still in existence today, such as the Highveld steel company. One's mind cannot but think of what connection and the real purpose of those Acts were, way back then in the height of apartheid in 1960. But, more importantly, who benefited from these laws.
Repealing Acts of this nature does have its benefits as it requires one to go into the Acts, and to assess their merits in retaining anything in them or not. This is a bit like ensuring that one doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Fortunately, though, many of our current transport laws have an overarching effect which ensures a certain amount of safeguards to prevent any intended gaps occurring.
Whilst I have the podium I want to say that one of the concerns the DA has is that we may be doing away with Acts which could in many ways help, as they do, in administering our transport better. For instance, one of our Acts, which was previously repealed, could ensure better control and movement of goods now going by rail. Although this specific Act does not appear in this repeal Bill, our research now suggests that we should consider this Act. To this end, the DA will be submitting a Private Member's Bill to reintroduce applicable - and I point and stress applicable - provisions in the Road Transportation Act, Act 74 of 1977. This is to once more control and regulate the movement of certain goods by road with a view to ensuring that where parallel rail services exist these goods will in future be transported by rail.
The impact of the movement of heavy freight such as coal, iron ore, steel, timber and similar bulk products by road, has had a devastating effect on our roads, and the time has come for this practice to be properly policed. We are not saying that we want to introduce the authoritarian and dictatorial practices of the past through the old railway police, but certain provisions in this Act did help in the preservation of our road network by ensuring that road freighters first had to pass the scrutiny of a transport board and have a permit issued only if they met certain criteria. The DA has, in previous debates, actually mentioned to the Minister and his predecessors to introduce such a Bill or even a regulation for certain goods to go by rail, but so far that has fallen on deaf ears.
I trust that support will be given for this initiative when this Private Member's Bill is introduced in Parliament. This aside, the DA supports the Transport Laws Repeal Bill and can't wait to see the end of that. Thank you. [Applause.]
House Chair, if a department that is supposed to be administering Acts of Parliament doesn't quite know how many such Acts are in force, then what about us in Parliament who are supposed to conduct oversight?
Members of this House, I understand, have never been given a full list of Acts administered by different departments. This defect needs to be remedied and the Speaker should order all departments to oblige, otherwise we will be operating in the dark. The Transport Laws Repeal Bill reveals to us why this is so important.
As Parliament, we are forever engaged in making new laws because changing circumstances overtake laws that were made in the past. Yet we allow laws that are spent or have no practical utility or legal effect to stay on. Inasmuch as we make laws, we should, on a regular basis, repeal laws that are spent or laws that impede our society from making progress.
Laws are good when they are current and progressive. Laws are bad when they hark back to a previous time and previous order, and stand in the way of change and innovations. Who knows what greater progress we could have made if we had only removed laws that are now obstacles in the path of progress? The Department of Transport must, therefore, be commended for its spring- cleaning and removal from the Statute Book of laws which are ghosts from the past. We also need to be doing our own ghost busting.
According to the SA Law Commission, South Africa has 2 800 Acts on its Statute Book. The Department of Transport was supposed to be administering 218 of these Acts. However, 51 of these 218 Acts, which is a staggering 23,5%, will now be repealed after today. That is an alarming statistic. What if every department is sitting with laws, 20% of which are obsolete? On top of that, another 14 Acts will be pruned, with certain provisions in them being excised. The slimmer versions will make these laws more modern.
This exercise should be an eye-opener to all of us. There is a lot of clutter on our Statute Book that must be removed. We have made a beginning, and Cope requests that a full-scale cleanup in all departments be made. I wish to submit that 2 000 Acts of Parliament will certainly be far better than 2 800. The fact that 16 years have passed since the birth of our democracy must indicate to us the urgency of properly cleaning up our laws. There are also many ordinances in the provincial legislatures that continue to live when they should have been remade into Acts of provincial parliaments long ago. The Land Use Planning Ordinance, Lupo, is one such ordinance.
A huge nightmare for our democracy, however, lies in the regulations that accompany Acts of Parliament. While the cleaning up of the statutes is a big step in the right direction, the regulations should never be left in limbo. For ordinary citizens, it is the obscure regulations which are the bane of their lives.
It is interesting to note that certain Acts have had a 50-year lifespan and are being left out of the process we are engaged in to run their course within the next six years. While this is perhaps the best option, all things considered, government needs to be proactive in determining whether any loopholes will arise come 2016 that would be detrimental to the state, and take timely action.
The handover should be thoroughly prepared for, and also to prevent there being any loopholes that would enable departmental officials to defraud the state through collusion. Cope will, however, support the Transport Laws Repeal Bill. [Time expired.] [Applause.]
Chairperson, the IFP understands that the Transport Laws Repeal Bill urgently requires simplification. In addition, all obsolete and extremely primitive legislation also requires eradication. For instance, there are currently 20 Railway Construction Acts which allow for the construction of equipment at various places within our country. These laws are often outdated and we believe that the industry must be broadened in order for the greater part of our country to benefit. It is as necessary as a dental root-canal procedure, but will hopefully be less painful.
The Bill seeks to repeal legislation which has been identified by the SA Law Reform Commission as being inconsistent with the equality clause in the Constitution or as being redundant and obsolete. I am sure we all agree that legislation which is no longer of any practical import and utility has no place in effective governance. Legislation which continues to have legal effect even when the purpose for which it was enacted no longer exists, or is being met by alternative means, must likewise be repealed. Our rail system is in urgent need of modernisation. The IFP believes that this is the most opportune time to consider wide-gauge railway lines, as well as the manufacture of commuter-friendly coaches. In conclusion, the IFP, therefore, supports the culling of all unnecessary, obsolete and redundant laws because they impact negatively upon service delivery. I thank you. [Applause.]
Thank you, Chairperson, and thank you hon members and members of the Portfolio Committee on Transport. I thank you for the co-operative and constructive way in which we work. Thank you for the comments. We also thank the members for supporting this Bill, and it shall be dealt with accordingly.
Of course, we will be bringing forward other obsolete Acts that need to be repealed that we still have on our Statute Book, such as the legislation on the transportation of coloured people and so forth. Those Acts are still going to be brought before this House. I thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.
Bill read a second time.