No, I can't sing. I think this Bill has taken a very long and torturous, and probably a very necessary consultative route to get where we are. The mere fact that we can today in Parliament, on a rare occasion, have all the parties agree that this Bill should be the one that they will vote on, I think, shows that sometimes, although these processes are painful and torturous, they are probably necessary to get buy-in from people. We should congratulate everyone.
We should start with the political heads that have driven this Bill, the various Ministers, and particularly our present Minister Mabandla. I think we should particularly thank the portfolio committee, both from the majority party - and particularly the chairperson, who is not listening - and also other members and particularly members of the opposition, who I think have always played a very constructive role as far as this Bill is concerned. They also need a big congratulation.
To the SA Law Commission, that has done an enormous amount, but particularly to the various members of the department, Lawrence Bassett, Henk du Preez, Hennie Potgieter and then, of course, the very able Miss Dalene Clark. I really think that we should thank them. They have brought enormous research and enormous talent to bear, to be able to let us pass this Bill. [Applause.]
I want to thank everyone for the very balanced way in which they have even criticised some aspects. No Bill can be perfect. Hopefully in future we will further amend this Bill to make it better; to make sure that it provides even better protection for people. I also thank everyone on that score. All the inputs that you have made, and particularly the report with the resolutions, will be studied carefully, and where we have to come back to Parliament, we will do so.
It would be remiss of me not to talk about the cloud that is hanging over this Bill again. As we walked into this Parliament today, I heard that we are not going to vote on this Bill, because of some technicalities. I do think it is very unfortunate, because the reasons for not doing so, I think, are completely wrong. They are based on wrong legal advice, and unfortunately the legal advice we are receiving in this Parliament just seems to get worse and worse. I have seen, on four different occasions, examples of legal advice given in this Parliament. The kind of information given in these instances, to say the least, is wrong.
It is very serious that Parliament should take this matter forward and make sure that we have the necessary capacity and skills. The legal advice we receive is amateurish and is highly unprofessional. What is worse is that decisions are being based on that kind of information. The department was not asked on any occasion for its advice or what it felt about the issues around why this Bill was not to be voted on today. I think that is just absolutely wrong and it should be rectified.
The issue here is of a mixed Bill that has been raised. This issue is not new in this Parliament. We have debated it for 12 years. We have, over and over, stated that we know the Constitution does not provide for a mixed Bill. It does not provide for a procedure for a mixed Bill. We have dealt with it in the Rules in such a way that we say that when a Bill can be split up into 75 or 76, we will do so. In all the discussions that we have had, we have also acknowledged that there are some Bills that are so intertwined that you cannot split them up as mixed Bills. This is a prime example. When we come to Justice issues, quite a lot of our Bills will be mixed in nature. We have made provision that when you comply with certain requirements in the criminal justice system, then you can get PEP. This is not a PEP policy for the Department of Health, because they don't deal with all issues of PEP. It is a very narrow mechanism that has been created that within the first 72 hours after you have been raped, that if you do comply with certain things in the criminal justice system, then you receive PEP from the Department of Health.
The advice that has been given is that this is a Health matter and should be excised from the Bill and put in a separate Bill. What people fail to see, of course, is that if you put it in a separate Bill, you are going to take all the Justice issues, which are also section 75 issues, to the other Bill. Therefore, the other Bill is not going to be passed because it will not be a section 76 Bill.
We have debated this over and over in Parliament and we have all agreed that the test, when we have done this in the Rules Committee, is the dominant purpose test. The dominant purpose in this case is clearly the criminal justice system. If you comply with certain things in the criminal justice system, then you get PEP. It is very clear that there should be no reason why this Bill should not be processed and why we shouldn't have voted on this Bill.
The consequence of this is that the Bill will now only be voted on next year. The NCOP cannot process the Bill and we now have to wait again for a few months until they have done their hearings. I must say that it is a highly unacceptable process. We now again have to wait for a number of months for this Bill to get on the Statute Book.
I also want to finally say that, if you want to know what this Bill is all about, watch the programme on the History Channel. Last night they had a programme on this absolute maniac, Moses Sithole, the one who was a serial rapist after 1994. Just the things that he did and got away with in the justice system are very scary. This Bill is really a Bill to try to deal with that and try to minimise the damage that the Moses Sitholes have done.
I want to dedicate this Bill to all those South Africans, the majority of South Africans, who treat their partners with decency and respect and do not treat their partners as objects on whom all sexual deprivations can be imposed. To those of you amongst us ...