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LEGAL TIMELINE ANALYSIS

Legal Timelines

The “Legal Timeline” of a piece of legislation is the period between the date upon which it came into force and the date upon which it was repealed. This is true for the timeline of each section of the legislation as well.

Using the Legal Timeline information

Before a piece of legislation (or section of legislation) comes into force, and after it is repealed, it is not relevant to anyone (that is, unless an unusual provision in other piece of legislation makes it prospectively or retrospectively in force). However, if you transgressed the legislation during its period in force, you may still be held civilly or criminally liable even after it has been repealed, so even repealed legislation could well be of interest to you.

For example:

A piece of legislation that refers to “employers” is irrelevant to you if you only became an employer after that piece of legislation was repealed.

You can still be held to be in transgression of a piece of legislation even after it has been repealed, if you transgressed the legislation during the legal timeline of that legislation.

A piece of legislation that has been made (“assented to”) but which is not yet in force, need not be complied with.

A section of a piece of legislation under which you obtained a permit, that was subsequently repealed, means you do not need that permit.

Working with legal timelines

It working with legislation, it is most important to establish the commencement date (and, if any, the repeal date) of the legislation or relevant sections of legislation. This is because any actions or omission that takes place outside the dates between which the legislation or relevant section is in force cannot not be a transgression of that legislation or section.

Once you have determined the commencement and repeal dates, you must determine whether there have been any amendments to the legislation or section. This is because what is a transgression one side of an amendment may not be a transgression the other side of the amendment. If you are concerned to establish whether or not an act or omission that took place on a particular date was a transgression, then you will need to obtain the relevant version of that legislation or section before you can check whether a transgression occurred.

Tracking down Legal Timelines

Legislation, and amendments to its sections, is published by notice in the various government gazettes. Such notices will usually state what the commencement date of the legislation or section is, or will state when the amendment or repeal takes effect. Sometimes the text of the legislation or the amendment itself will state when it is to take effect, or how to work out the commencement date. Where this is not stated explicitly, the date of publication in the gazette is taken to be the commencement date. For instance, the text of the legislation may state that the legislation will commence on a date or dates to be fixed by the Minister by publication in the Government Gazette.

LegalB Legal Timelines data

Information on the legal timelines of various pieces of legislation is provide on this website, and can be found in overview documentation we provide for particular pieces of legislation.

For example, to go to the overview of the South African National Auditing Professions Act, No. 26 of 2005, right click HERE to open South African National Legislation page, click of 2005, locate Act 26 of 2005, and then click on the LINK button to open the overview of that Act.

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Please remember that the development of our Legal Timeline database is a work in progress, and any information you obtain on this site should be verified externally. Please contact us if you need to know a bit more about our timeline information, or if you need assistance in obtaining specific information about the timeline of a piece of legislation or a section within it.