The Department of Justice and Correctional Services is seeking to repeal an apartheid era trespass law, saying that it has lost its relevance in a constitutional democracy.
The department has published the draft Unlawful Entering on Premises Bill for public comment.
The new bill is aimed at replacing the old laws and to reintroduce regulations prohibiting unlawful entry to premises, and provide for matters connected to that.
Department spokesperson Chrispin Phiri says although the trespass law was not overtly unconstitutional, it still is not suitable for a democratic society.
“So, in the past, the act was primarily used to ensure that it prohibits for instance meetings of particularly black people, on a particular piece of land somewhere, so they could then use the trespassing act to arrest a number of people. But it is safe to say that a lot of problematic provisions of that particular act have since been repealed, but we still find that the current version is really not compatible with the type of society that we live in today.”
