Traditional Courts Bill process limps on

The National Assembly’s Justice and Correctional Services Committee has adopted a revised version of the 2017 Traditional Courts Bill from which the ‘opt out clause’ has been removed. According to a committee media statement announcing this, the section 76 Bill will only be processed by the provincial legislatures under ‘the next Parliament’. ‘If anyone is unhappy with the process followed (by a traditional court) or the outcome, … has a concern and (has) exhausted the hierarchy of the traditional system, he or she can appeal to a Magistrate’s Court,’ the statement notes. The revised Bill is not yet publicly available.