ANC does Parliamentary summersault on Copyright Amendment Bill

12 May 2021

The DA welcomes the parliamentary backflip done by ANC members on the Copyright Amendment Bill in today's Portfolio Committee of Trade, Industry and Competition.

This display of acrobatics comes after the President referred the Bill back to Parliament in June 2020 and an initial unwillingness by ANC MPs to listen to his reservations on the Bill.

During the drafting of the Bill, the ANC refused to listen to the DA’s concerns and objections regarding it’s contents, and decided to ram it through before the 2019 elections.

We are now essentially back to the drawing board which will see the Bill being re-tagged as a Section 76 Bill, further public participation on the “Fair-Use” clause as well as scrapping retrospective compensation and arbitrary deprivation and deleting executive powers farmed out to the Minister to act without Parliamentary authority.

The DA hopes this will be a lesson for the ANC that they operate in a Parliamentary democracy that requires the views of political parties and all of civil society to be heard.

We also look forward to engaging with this important Bill in a way that protects content creators, promotes access to information for educational work and ensures equitable protection and rights for those that the Bill seeks to regulate.

Statement issued by Dean Macpherson MP - DA Shadow Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition, 12 May 2021