South African Legislation
Printed Sources

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Printed Sources of Legislation

1. Government Gazette
All acts in South Africa are published in the Government Gazette. It is the official and first publication of legislative material for the information of all citizens.

The GG is published weekly by the Government Printer. Each act is published in a separate Government Gazette. In earlier years these gazette were known as Extraordinary Gazettes.

Date of commencement of Statutes:

• Date of publication of the act

• Date mentioned in a proclamation in the Government Gazette

Proclamations, government notices, general notices and regulations are also published in the Government Gazette.

Weekly Government Gazettes have an index and a monthly index is published.

The Government Printer publishes an annual alphabetical list of published acts according to the short title of the act.

[Please Note: Full text access to the Government Gazette, from 1993 onwards, is available on-line.
Please see Online Databases on left-hand side. Paper copies of the Government Gazette are available at our Government Publications section.]

2. Publisher series

South Africa's two leading legal publishers, LexisNexis, Butterworths and Juta Law, publish statutes commercially in a easy-to-use format.

2.1  Butterworths Classified and Annotated Statutes of South Africa is a loose leaf edition and comprises of 46 volumes.  The set contains statutes in force from 1910.  The statutes are collected in a set of large maroon-coloured binders and is updated twice annually and every three months a supplement is published.  In the case of amended or repealed acts, out-of-date pages are taken out and replaced with pages that include the amending provisions.  Therefore the acts appear in a 'consolidated' ('as amended') form.

Butterworths have their own system of legal classification by arranging their subjects into 'headings' (e.g. labour, family, etc.)  Within each 'heading' the acts are arranged chronologically.

Acts are published in Afrikaans and English.   Volume 1 (index volume) contains alphabetical and chronological tables of statutes.  It is important to use the index to locate an act, because it is not always obvious under which 'heading' the act appears.

2.2  Butterworths also publishes a set of selected acts often used in practice (i.e. the Deeds Act; the Magistrates Court Act; the Liquor Act).  The set is known as Butterworths Consolidated Legislation Service (smaller, black binders).  Each volume contains the text of the act, regulations in terms of the act and a list of fitting cases.  This loose leave publication is updated quarterly.

[Please Note: Full text access to the Butterworths statutes is available on-line. See Online Databases on left-hand side.]

2.3  Juta publishes a seven-volume (index volume included) set of statutes of Juta's Statutes of South Africa every year.  The amendments and additions made during the latest session of Parliament are incorporated into the text of the statutes concerned. Juta's arrangement of the acts differ considerably to the format Butterworths uses.  Juta's format consists out of 18 groups and 105 subgroups according to their subject matter. 

[Please Note: Full text access to the Juta statutes is available on-line.  See Online Databases on left-hand side.  The seven-volume printed version is are available at our Government Publications section.]

2.4   Juta's Legislation Service (Juta se Wetgewingsdiens) issues individual acts with regulations in Afrikaans and English. They are individually arranged, according to the topic it covers, in the reference section of our law section.  These volumes also includes the regulations of each of the acts.

3.  Current Awareness Services

Publications to keep users up to date on newest acts are:

• CURRENT LAW, Law of South Africa, a monthly current awareness service

• JUTA'S DIGEST TO SOUTH AFRICAN LAW

• JUTA'S WEEKLY LEGISLATION SERVICE
   

4.  Provincial legislation

Each province in South Africa has an Official Gazette. All provincial legislation is published in these gazettes, as well as proclamations and provincial notices.

Ordinances and provincial acts are also published in loose leaf editions by Lexis Nexis Butterworths and Juta.
 

5.  Municipal regulations
 

Municipal regulations and notices are published in the Official Gazette of the province where the municipality (local authority) is situated.

 

6.  Regulations

Regulations are published in Regulation Gazettes. Regulation Gazettes are also Government Gazettes and have both Government Gazette numbers and Regulation Gazette numbers. 

7.  Indexes to legislation

• Juta's Index to the South African Government and Provincial Gazettes
  ( formerly The Windex) is an useful tool in handling big volumes of legislation put out by provincial councils and other local legislatures before 1989.  It indexes acts, proclamations, government notices, provincial ordinances and notices.  It is divided into two parts:  
  
  1. An index to National acts and ordinances arranged according to   subject
  2. An index to government and provincial notices and proclamations also arranged according to subject
    

• Government Gazette Index is published since 1979.  It indexes acts, proclamations, regulations, government notices and legal advertisements according to subject.  The GGI index is therefore an useful reference source to legislation and subsidiary legislation.
   

• In 1990 the title changed to Juta State Library Index to the South African Government Gazette. 
  It is published every 3 months and cumulates annually

Questions and comments to: Melinda Heese
© Stellenbosch University,   Last updated 2007/03/27