The season is now — Time to enact family-law reform

Résumé détaillé

Parliamentary terms end. Families’ needs do not. After decades of proposals, consultation and litigation, South Africa has another opportunity to protect the relationships in…

Parliamentary terms end. Families’ needs do not. After decades of proposals, consultation and litigation, South Africa has another opportunity to protect the relationships in which people actually live. This time, reform must make it beyond the promise.

Helen Kruuse is a Professor of Law at Rhodes University and Coordinator of the South African Family Law Teachers’ Colloquium.

“To everything… there is a season,” runs the familiar refrain of The Byrds’ song Turn! Turn! Turn!

In South African family-law reform, we have had a very long season of waiting.

A time to investigate. A time to consult. A time to draft. Then another election, another administration and another legislative programme. For Parliament, a time to begin again. For families still waiting for protection, another time to weep. Again.

The South African Law Reform Commission’s recently published report on a Single Marriage Statute (3 November 2026) offers an opportunity to change that refrain. Its proposed Protected Relationships Bill reaches beyond conventional marriage to recognise religious marriages and life partnerships in which the parties have undertaken reciprocal duties of support.

This is no marginal concern: Census 2022 recorded more than 3.7 million people living together as partners, while Stats SA records a sustained decline in marriage registrations. It is time to protect families as they live, not only as the law has historically preferred them.

The question is no longer whether we know enough to begin. It is whether the executive and Parliament will see reform through.

The Law Reform Commission submitted its report on Islamic Marriages and Related Matters, including a proposed draft bill, to the minister for Justice and Constitutional Development in July 2003. The Department of Justice subsequently published a draft Muslim Marriages Bill for public comment in January 2011.

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