Ramaphosa refuses to sign two new laws for South Africa

President Cyril Ramaphosa has not signed the Copyright Amendment Bill and Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill and has sent both to the Constitutional Court.

South Africa’s highest court will rule on their constitutionality, which the President previously requested Parliament consider.

“President Ramaphosa has undertaken this referral in the form of a letter to the Registrar of the Constitutional Court and in terms of Sections 79(4)(b) and 84(2)(c) of the Constitution,” said the Presidency.

“These provisions deal with the process by which the President assents to Bills, including referring draft legislation back to Parliament after it has been passed if the President has reservations about the constitutionality of Bills.”

 “The Constitution also provides that if the President still has concerns after Parliament has reconsidered a Bill, the President can refer it to the Constitutional court for a decision on the constitutionality of the draft law.”

Ramaphosa told the Constitutional Court about his concerns about provisions in the legislation originally drafted and reconsidered by Parliament. He has thus asked for the apex court to make a decision.

The Copyright Amendment Bill

The National Assembly passed the Copyright Amendment Bill on 1 March 2024.

The Bill was initially introduced in 2017 but was returned to Parliament by Ramaphosa in 2020.

The legislation seeks to amend the Copyright Act of 1978, the first comprehensive effort to modernise South Africa’s copyright law in nearly 50 years.

Parliament previously said that the Bill “allows for further limitations and exceptions to the reproduction of copyright works and providing for equitable remuneration or the sharing of royalties on copyrighted works.”

It also provides people with disabilities access to copyrighted works. This means that a person converting a job into a format accessible to persons with disabilities, for example (like Braille), must ensure that the integrity of the original work is respected.

However, it has received widespread criticism from industry players.

The Confédération Internationale des Sociétés d’Auteurs et Compositeurs (Cisac)—an international non-profit that studies copyright and authors’ rights—said that the Bill will harm South Africa’s creative community.

Cisac said that one shortcoming of the Bill is that it includes a long and open-ended list of exceptions. It argued that this would devalue works, as many new uses of original material will result in the creative no longer having the right to earn royalties.

It also argued that the “Fair Use” outlined in the Bill will be “a lose-lose situation for both creators and users.”

In addition, the issue of creative labour being freely accessible to the government and the education sector has been a central point of debate. It argued that this would lead to uncertainty in the market, which could only be fixed via expensive and wasteful litigation.

The Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill

Not too far removed from the Copyright Amendment Bill is the Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Performers’ Protection Act of 1967 by inserting, deleting, and substituting specific definitions.

Among other things, the Bill seeks to protect the rights of sound recording producers, broaden restrictions on the use of performances, and provide for royalties or equitable remuneration payable when a performance is sold or rented out.

Like the Copyright Amendment Bill, the Performers’ Protection Amendment Bill was already returned to Parliament in 2020.

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