CALL TO SCRAP CIVIL UNIONS BILL PUBLIC HEARINGS AND START AGAIN

28 September 2006

CALL TO SCRAP CIVIL UNIONS BILL PUBLIC HEARINGS AND START AGAIN

Today 28 September 2006, Defend Marriage, a coalition of pro-marriage organisations, called on parliament to abandon the disastrously organised public hearings on the Civil Unions Bill and start again. Information for the location times and venues has in many cases only been available with 24 hours or less notice from the Committee Secretaries. Newspaper advertisements did not give specific venues or times. The times, venues and locations of many hearings have been changed at the last minute, sometimes even after the hearings were supposed to have started. Sometimes they were only finalised the day before the hearing took place. The organisers in many cases do not know the street address of the venues and referred people to the local municipalities to find out. The main method of advertising has been word of mouth, where interested organisations phone the parliamentary officials to update on changes and then phone or email to notify others.

In Polokwane, parliament was not ready for the hearing at 11:30 when the hearing was supposed to have commenced at 10am and the venue and time was moved to the local township to commence later that afternoon. Interested parties were only notified of the new venue that same afternoon. Hearings advertised for Ulundi and Upington have been cancelled. Interested parties who asked for information by the email address advertised have not been replied to. This email address is not being accessed while the officials are travelling for the hearings. The Pietermaritzburg hearing scheduled originally for Saturday 30th September has been moved to Friday 29th September, but most interested parties in Kwa-Zulu Natal do not yet know of the change. The parliamentary officials have not notified interested parties of the date and venue changes and cancellations even when asked to do so. Interested parties have had to phone repeatedly to keep up to date on changes. In Polokwane on 21st September, ChristianView Network requested new rescheduled public hearings and parliament agreed to do this on 6 October 06. Nevertheless, parliament has not yet been able to confirm the new venue. The disaster should not be blamed on parliamentary officials, since they were given unreasonable time frame to organise this and have never organised such provincial hearings before.

This poor advertising, venue and date changes unreasonably infringes on the rights of interested parties to have their voices heard. Many do not know about the opportunity or did not hear in time to schedule to be present. We believe it therefore does not comply with the Constitutional Court ruling of 17 August 2006 requiring provincial public participation.

‘Defend Marriage’ therefore calls on parliament to abandon the current disastrously organised public hearings and start again. To be fair, public notification should follow the standards accepted by the Department of Environment Affairs for environmental public meetings, with all venues and times properly advertised ten days in advance of the public meeting. It is suggested that parliament should employ professional public participation consultants to ensure the hearings are properly organised to comply with the Constitutional Court requirements. Parliament should ask the Constitutional Court for an extension of time to undertake the process in a reasonable time frame.

Despite this very poor advertising and organisation there has been enormous interest in attending the hearings and many leaders have changed their busy schedules to be present at only 24 hours notice. The best-attended hearing was Soweto on 20th September 06. Some organisations wanted to but could not attend hearings because they were not properly notified in advance.

The deadline for written submissions is 6th October 2006 by 16:30. Organisations should send your written submissions and requests to make oral submissions to dmartin@parliament.gov.za

‘Defend Marriage’ encourages interested parties to participate in these hearings despite the problems as we don’t have a guarantee that new hearings will be granted.

To add to the confusion, the name of the ‘Civil Unions Bill’ itself is misleading and most members of the public are unaware of its content. Firstly unlike ‘Civil Unions’ overseas, it essentially grants all the rights of marriage to same-sex couples and even allows the use of the word ‘marriage’ in the ceremony. Secondly, about half of the Bill deals with rights for opposite sex couples in the form of registered and unregistered ‘domestic partnerships’, which create a controversial marriage alternative and rights for unmarried couples. These rights compete with the rights of those in customary marriages, which is concerning Traditional leaders and religious communities using customary marriages. Most of the public is completely unaware of these additional radical social engineering proposals, which in themselves deserve extensive public consultation.

The latest information we have for the hearings is:
All provincial hearings from 10 am to 2 pm.

* Friday 29 September: Pietermaritzburg: New Hanover Hall, Next to welfare department, R33 Greytown Road.
* Monday 2nd October: Umtata: Umtata City Hall, Leeds Road, Umtata
* Wednesday 4th October: Phokeng in Rustenburg, Mose Kotane Municipality Chambers, Phokeng, Rustenburg.
* Thursday 5th October: Kimberly: Galeshiwe Civic Hall, Galeshewe, Kimberly.
* Friday 6 October: Polokwane (Venue not confirmed yet)
* Monday 9 October: Woodstock, Cape Town: Woodstock Town Hall

10 - 11 Oct - Parliament
12 - 13 Oct - Stakeholder public hearings - Parliament
16 - 19 Oct - Committee Deliberations
The above national hearings & deliberations in parliament take place 9:00
hrs to 16:00 hrs
20 October - vote in the Committee (9:00-13:00hrs)

After this, the National Council of Provinces needs to conduct their own process and it needs to be passed by both houses of parliament before 1st December 2006 in order to meet the deadline set by Judge Albie Sachs on 1st December 2005. ‘Defend Marriage’ says there is not enough time left to do this process properly to comply with the constitutional court ruling of 17 August 2006 and therefore, Home Affairs should request the Constitutional Court to grant an extension of time. The Constitutional Court has granted extensions of time for passing of other legislation in the past.

For more information, please contact: Ms Dineo Martin, (021) 403 3601; Fax (021) 403 2808;
dmartin@parliament.gov.za Cell:072 2312337 or Mr Mangke 072 1864205 to get
up to date information on exactly where and when the public hearings are
taking place. The above schedule could change at the last minute.

Mr Patrick Chauke, the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee Chairperson can be contacted at 073 827 5375