{"id":616985,"date":"2022-08-15T15:47:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T13:47:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=616985"},"modified":"2022-08-16T15:06:24","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T13:06:24","slug":"new-laws-to-deal-with-trespassers-on-private-property-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/616985\/new-laws-to-deal-with-trespassers-on-private-property-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"New laws to deal with trespassers on private property in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Justice and Correctional Services has published the draft Unlawful Entering on Premises Bill for public comment.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, if enacted, will fully repeal the Trespass Act, No. 6 of 1959 and establish new laws prohibiting unlawful entry on premises in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>According to the department, the Trespass Act was identified as a piece of colonial\/apartheid-era legislation, originally designed to combat trespass, publications and conduct engendering hostility between certain population groups.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Trespass Act has therefore lost its relevance in our constitutional democracy,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>The new bill aims to replace these old laws and reintroduce regulations prohibiting unlawful entry to premises, and provide for matters connected to that.<\/p>\n<p>Among other things, it provides for the offence of unlawful entry and the penalties to be imposed if a person is found to be guilty of the offence; the duty to inform an intruder of unlawful entry; the powers of the police and defences against the offence of unlawful entry.<\/p>\n<p>Broadly, the new laws lay out the offence as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If someone unlawfully gains entry to an enclosed property without permission from the property owner or lawful occupier they are guilty of an offence;<\/li>\n<li>Someone caught on or in a premises without the explicit or implied consent of the owner is presumed to be trespassing;<\/li>\n<li>Property owners need to give notice &#8211; either by putting up clear signage or giving an oral warning to the perpetrator &#8211; that indicates that entry is prohibited;<\/li>\n<li>Owners or lawful occupiers can call the police to apprehend trespassers;<\/li>\n<li>Trespassers can defend against the charge if there is a reasonable belief that they have title or interest on the premises that entitles them to enter the property;<\/li>\n<li>It&#8217;s presumed that access to the door of the property is not prohibited if you&#8217;ve provided the means to access it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If someone is found guilty of trespassing, they could face a fine, up to two years in prison, or both.<\/p>\n<p>The call for comments on the bill is open until 16 September 2022. The draft bill is embedded below:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Draft-Unlawful-Entering-On-Premises-Bill.pdf\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The comments on the bill must be submitted to Ms A Botha, on or before 16 September 2022. The contact details are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Postal address:<\/strong> The Director-General: Justice and Constitutional Development, Private Bag X 81. Pretoria, 0001 &#8211; marked for the attention of Ms A Botha; or<\/li>\n<li><strong>E-mail address:<\/strong> AlBotha@justice.gov.za<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/616833\/sars-wants-new-laws-to-help-it-go-after-these-taxpayers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>SARS wants new laws to help it go after these taxpayers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Justice and Correctional Services has published the draft Unlawful Entering on Premises Bill for public comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":586654,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-616985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616985"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628812,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616985\/revisions\/628812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}