National Assembly speaker Thoko Didiza has acknowledged that parliament is taking too long to pass legislation, adding that it was reviewing its legislative processes and that legal services had proposed ways to reduce delays.
“We’ve actually had proposals coming from legal services on how we can actually narrow that timeline because indeed it is our concern that the time it takes for passing legislation in our system has actually increased instead of it being shorter,” Didiza said.
Her comments came hours after the Constitutional Court declared the Public Procurement Act invalid after finding that parliament had failed to facilitate reasonable public participation, including inadequate time for stakeholders to consider amendments, when material changes were made to the legislation.
The ruling highlights the tension identified by Didiza: parliament seeking to reduce the time it takes to pass laws while mindful that rushed legislation can expose it to legal challenges.
Didiza said parliament was examining where delays could be reduced, particularly because bills often undergo consultation before reaching parliament and then face another round of public participation once tabled.
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She said technical legislation could generally move quickly, while bills involving substantive policy changes could take considerably longer because of disagreements between parties, public submissions and stakeholder consultations.
The Public Procurement Act illustrates the consequences when that balance is not achieved. The legislation was signed into law in 2024 but never came into full operation.
Didiza said parliament had to consider the court’s concerns when reviewing its processes.
“Most of it has been record keeping, but also sometimes it’s when that comes back to parliament. How is it engaged with?” she said, referring to previous court findings on public participation.
She said parliament needed to be able to demonstrate not only that it had consulted the public but also how it had considered the issues raised and why particular submissions were accepted or rejected.
The same tension between speed and due process is playing out in parliament’s ad hoc committee, which is investigating allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Didiza said she had raised concerns with the committee’s chair about the need to conclude its work, while recognising that the committee had been dealing with a large volume of evidence.
The committee has already sought further time to finalise its report after Didiza granted it an extension to October 30. Its chair, Soviet Lekganyane, said the volume and complexity of the evidence required detailed consideration.
Didiza said the committee could conclude its work without reaching agreement on every issue, with areas of disagreement reflected in its report.
“I would have wished that the work of the ad hoc committee would have finished,” she said.
She also cautioned the committee against straying beyond its mandate, particularly because some of the issues under consideration were being examined by other investigative bodies.
Identifying problems
The speaker said the prolonged process should ultimately provide parliament with lessons about its oversight mechanisms, including whether MPs and committees are identifying problems within government departments early enough to prevent them from escalating.
Didiza also acknowledged that political considerations could sometimes overwhelm the work of committees.
“Sometimes you then end up with the politics having more of a bearing on an issue than it’s supposed to be,” she said.
The problem is compounded by the more fragmented seventh democratic parliament, where parties can no longer assume that legislation or other parliamentary decisions will automatically secure enough votes.
Sometimes you then end up with the politics having more of a bearing on an issue than it’s supposed to be.
— Thoko Didiza, National Assembly speaker
Didiza and deputy speaker Annelie Lotriet said the new political configuration had required greater negotiation between parties before matters reached the floor.
The presiding officers also face challenges regarding MPs’ conduct, particularly during virtual sittings. Didiza said MPs continued to misuse points of order to interrupt proceedings or raise issues that should instead be dealt with during debate.
She said parliament had rules governing conduct in physical and virtual proceedings, but political parties also had a responsibility to discipline their members.
The current virtual and hybrid arrangements are temporary, enabling MPs to campaign in their constituencies in the runup to local government elections on November 4. Lotriet said parliament would return to hybrid sittings after the elections and eventually to full physical sittings.
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