South Africa’s justice system is set for a major overhaul as two groundbreaking pieces of legislation head to parliament, one aimed at cracking down on international fugitives, the other set to revolutionise divorce laws for thousands of married citizens.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, under Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, is steering efforts to modernise South Africa’s outdated legal frameworks, with fresh proposals designed to both align with international law and fix long-standing loopholes in family legislation.
According to Business Tech, one of the proposed reforms is the International Co-operation in Criminal Matters Amendment Bill, a response to rising global expectations around justice, accountability, and digital innovation in law. Currently, the country’s 1996 Act doesn’t permit the use of technology like video conferencing to gather evidence across borders, an approach that’s become a norm elsewhere in the world.
The amendment, now introduced to parliament, seeks to change that. If passed, it will allow witnesses and experts to give testimony via audio-visual links, a move the department says will cut costs and make legal proceedings quicker and more accessible.
More crucially, the bill also addresses a glaring gap: South Africa’s current law only allows legal cooperation with states, not international organisations like the International Criminal Court (ICC) or war crimes tribunals. This has led to legal and diplomatic confusion, especially in high-profile cases such as that of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who skipped the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg to avoid arrest after the ICC issued a warrant against him for war crimes.
That wasn’t South Africa’s first brush with controversy – in 2015, the country was condemned for not arresting Sudan’s then-president Omar al-Bashir, who was also wanted by the ICC. These incidents exposed the need for South African law to clearly outline how to respond when international entities, not just other countries, request arrests or assistance.
Under the new bill, South Africa would have the legal tools to arrest, detain, and surrender individuals to recognised international bodies, specifically in cases involving genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
But that’s not the only front on which Minister Kubayi is acting.
In a parallel move to address long-standing inequality in divorce proceedings, she is preparing to introduce the General (Family) Laws Amendment Bill, 2025. The aim is to bring long-overdue fairness to spouses who were married out of community of property, especially those whose unions didn’t include the accrual system introduced in 1984.
Under the current system, if a couple marries without accrual, their estates are completely separate. That means a spouse who may have sacrificed income to care for children or support a partner’s career could walk away with nothing if the marriage ends, even after decades of contribution.
Although the law has slowly evolved to include redistribution mechanisms, key groups, especially those married after 1984 but without accrual, were left out. The Constitutional Court ruled last year that this was unconstitutional.
The new bill will correct that by allowing divorce courts to redistribute assets more fairly in these cases, and for the first time, allow similar claims when a marriage ends in death. It will also amend the Mediation in Certain Divorce Matters Act to define and expand the role of the Family Advocate in supporting financially vulnerable spouses.
Legal experts say the changes could benefit a significant portion of South Africans, particularly older women who entered marriages without fully understanding the financial consequences of contracts made decades ago.
Both Bills are now on the legislative fast track, though public consultations and parliamentary debate are expected to follow.
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