Outdated witchcraft law revisited

Six years after the SA Law Reform Commission recommended scrapping a controversial apartheid law prohibiting activities related to ‘witchcraft’, it remains on the statute books due to staff challenges at the commission. In the latest revised discussion paper on a review of the Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1957 – out for public comment until 31 October – the commission said it had decided to republish the document as a previous one from 2016 was outdated. The Act has been under legal review since 2010. TimesLIVE reports that the commission said the resignation of a researcher assigned to the investigation had caused delays. ‘Subsequent to the publication of discussion paper 139 in January 2016, the researcher assigned to this investigation moved on from the commission. This resulted in the investigation being delayed until a new researcher could be assigned.’