Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Act of 2023

by enacted by the Parliament of South Africa

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(English text signed by the President.)
(Assented to 19 July 2023.)

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Act

To amend the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, so as to recognise South African Sign Language as one of the official languages of the Republic; and to provide for matters incidental thereto.

Be it enacted by the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa, as follows:—

Amendment of section 6 of Constitution

1. Section 6 of the Constitution is hereby amended—

(a)

by the substitution for subsection (1) of the following subsection:

(1) “The official languages of the Republic are Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, South African Sign Language, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu.”; and

(b)

by the substitution for paragraph (a) of subsection (5) of the following paragraph:

“(a)

promote, and create conditions for, the development and use of—

(i)

all official languages; and

(ii)

the Khoi, Nama and San languages; and

[(iii)

sign language; and]”.

Short title and commencement

2. This Act is called the Constitution Eighteenth Amendment Act, 2023, and comes into operation on a date fixed by the President by proclamation in the Gazette.