The South African Parliament's oversight of delegated legislation

Smit, Susan

The South African Parliament's oversight of delegated legislation

Master Thesis

2018

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Department of Public Law

Faculty

Faculty of Law

Abstract

This thesis presents an analysis of the South African Parliament’s attempts to create a mechanism to enable oversight of delegated legislation. The question sought to be addressed is, whether Parliament has done anything to create a mechanism to oversee the delegation of its law-making authority to the executive and if so, whether any of these efforts have been successful. This paper illustrated how the making of delegated legislation is not foreign to South Africa’s system of separation of powers as provided for in our Constitution and as interpreted by our courts. It is shown how, despite what the Constitution allows, recent law-making efforts have not strengthened Parliament’s ability to oversee delegated legislation. Instead legislators purposefully sought to curb attempts to improve rule-making and delegated legislation. Similarly, efforts to make delegated legislation more accessible to the public have been missing from government’s list of priorities. The South African Parliament’s efforts to scrutinise delegated legislation is contrasted with the efforts of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature and several foreign legislatures. Finally, it is indicated how Parliament, after more than 20 years since the promulgation of the final Constitution, has failed to create a permanent mechanism to enhance and strengthen its oversight of delegated legislation.

Keywords

Constitutional &amp

Administrative Law

Reference:

Collections

Masters

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