'Most Notably' (1 June 2026)

This week's 'Most Notably' reports on the status of two draft Bills with the same title – prepared by two different departments. It draws to some extent from an article we wrote for SA Legal Academy, which was published earlier today.

When the Department of Basic Education issued a media statement announcing the imminent tabling of a Children's Amendment Bill we should have known it wasn't referring to the Department of Social Development's version. So, we checked. And sure enough, there are two Children's Amendment Bills in the pipeline.

Which is because, on 1 April 2022, responsibility for early childhood development (ECD) was transferred from the Department of Social Development to the Department of Basic Education. And clauses removed from the 2020 Children's Amendment Bill in March 2021 by the National Assembly Social Development Committee in place at the time included several affecting ECD.

The decision to remove them followed complaints about inadequate pre-tabling consultation on ECD-related matters. Had this unfortunate oversight on the part of the department been addressed immediately, the processes entailed would have prolonged the Bill's passage through Parliament beyond the Gauteng High Court (Pretoria) deadline for drafting a 'comprehensive legal solution' to myriad challenges bedevilling the foster care system. And since providing for such a solution was one of the Bill's overarching objectives, what choice did the committee have? Also, the original Court Deadline had already been extended several times, as a July 2022 committee report on the Bill conceded.

It's against that backdrop that a revised, shorter Bill was passed in 2022 before the Court deadline expired, enacted the following year – and fully operationalised in May 2025.

When the decision was made to remove ECD provisions from the Bill, it was agreed that their fate would be left to the next Parliament, as indicated in a ‘legacy’ document presented in August 2024 to the National Assembly Social Development Committee now in place. This was noting that the issues concerned could either be addressed in a Bill prepared by the committee itself – or in legislation drafted by the department for Cabinet approval and formal introduction by the Minister. Given that a committee Bill tends to require the appointment of external expertise – a time-consuming process – members decided that the department should proceed with drafting the Bill. A media statement was issued confirming that decision.

Nearly two years later, during a committee meeting on 13 May 2026, the committee was informed of an unforeseen delay in the drafting process deemed necessary to accommodate consultations in the National Economic Development & Labour Council. As a result, the Department of Social Development's Children's Amendment Bill is not expected to be ready for tabling in Parliament until March 2027. The committee's concerns about the time being taken to finalise the Bill are reflected in a media statement issued shortly after the meeting.

In the absence of a joint statement from both departments, it can only be assumed that ECD provisions removed from the 2020 Bill have been accommodated in the Children's Amendment Bill prepared by the Department of Basic Education and recently approved by Cabinet for tabling. If that is indeed so, Parliamentary Monitoring Group records tend to suggest that members of the National Assembly's Social Development Committee are none the wiser.

Until next Monday ...

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