Parliament buildings in Cape Town, where the Cogta Portfolio Committee is considering the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, also known as the Coalitions Bill.
Image: File
Parliament was warned on Thursday against cutting the public-participation timelines to rush the Municipal Structures Amendment Bill, commonly known as Coalitions Bill.
Briefing the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) Portfolio Committee on the bill, senior parliamentary legal advisor Charmaine van der Merwe said Parliament has discretion when conducting public participation, but there were a lot of requirements that must be complied with.
“Parliament must put measures in place for public participation. What is important is that we must take into account the nature and the importance of the legislation, the impact of the legislation, time constraints and efficiency on the lawmaking process,” she said.
“The courts have warned that the fact that the bill is politically urgent does not allow us to actually reduce our timelines. We have discretion and we must give meaningful opportunities and make sure that people make use of those opportunities,” Van der Merwe said.
The Cogta committee was briefed for the first time since the bill was introduced in Parliament last week following its certification by the State Law Advisor and approval by Cabinet.
The Department of Cogta has previously indicated its wish that the bill be passed before the upcoming local government elections to be held on November 4.
However, questions have been asked whether Parliament could fulfil its constitutional duty to ensure meaningful public participation on the bill before the elections.
The Coalitions Bill is designed to provide a regulatory framework for establishing coalition governments and aims to tackle the growing issues related to coalitions in local governance.
During her presentation, Van der Merwe noted that the timeframe for the bill was a question before Parliament.
The bill, though not tagged yet, was likely to be classified as a section 76 bill, which usually takes between 24 months and 30 months to complete.
The processing of a bill depended on its nature, public interest, number of amendments and complexity of amendments to be made.
Van der Merwe indicated that if the interest in a bill was high, there might be a large number of submissions and time would be needed to analyse them.
She told the MPs that they should be aware of some of the challenges that may come along the way that included scheduling of the committee meetings and capacity constraints of the committee's support staff.
“If there is a lot of volume of submissions, it takes time to work through them and there is not enough staff to do that.”
Van der Merwe stated that better prepared bills and consultations before parliamentary processes often yielded fewer submissions and amendments.
Earlier Cogta Department Deputy Director-General Kevin Naidoo said the proposed bill was sparked by challenges experienced when there was no outright majority in council, leading to instability, frequent leadership changes and motions of no confidence amid legislative gaps that were now to be closed.
“There are no provisions to govern coalition agreements, inconsistency in governance practices and also little to no guidance in ensuring stability, continuity and institutional arrangements," he said.
The bill limits to one the motion of no confidence against the mayor, deputy mayor, speaker and whip in 12 months and provides for election either by a show of hands or secret ballot.
It also sets the timeline for the formation of a council, election of office-bearers and establishment of Municipal Public Accounts Committee within 12 months after the elections, amongst other things.
Committee chairperson Zweli Mkhize said it was important for the members to access the information on the bill because it would help them predict the journey they would undertake.
“We have a sense of the timelines. We will need our committee to be given a draft of an approach on processes of consultation so that we will move from that. We will indicate when we are ready to discuss it,” he added.
However, Mkhize noted that the upcoming constituency period will make it impossible for the committee to come back for committee work for four weeks from August 31 until September 18.
