OP-ED: The reform that never came: Why faith leaders are losing patience with the Section 22 process

OP-ED: 29 September 2026

The reform that never came: Why faith leaders are losing patience with the Section 22 process

In August, faith leaders expected Parliament's intervention to change the CRL's Section 22 Committee. Two provinces later, nothing has changed, and leaders who attended the hearings describe a process that felt built to persuade, not to listen.
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By Michael Swain, Executive Director, FOR SA

On 4 August, the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (PC COGTA) gave the Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) one week to submit "a clear, concrete proposal" on inclusivity and reform of its Section 22 Committee. The Chairperson, Dr Zweli Mkhize, was direct: "The issue of inclusivity has to be addressed. And the issue of reforming the committee has to be addressed." The Portfolio Committee recommended that "the religious sector must lead this process and not the Commission", and promised "a separate meeting" with the sector. Faith leaders had good reason to expect change.

What the CRL Rights Commission offered

The Commission's reply, tabled on 11 August, read differently. "Reform" meant inviting organisations that had raised concerns to be co-opted "into the existing Committee structure". To qualify, an organisation must "support the mandate, Terms of Reference and consultative ethos of the Section 22 Committee" and "recognise the need for appropriate legislative support".

In FOR SA's view, that makes agreeing with the outcome the price of admission. The mandate, the Terms of Reference and the need for legislation are the very matters in dispute, and the legislative-support condition risks settling in advance a question Parliament had left open. The proposal set no number of new members, no timeline and no measure of inclusivity.

Conditions set, nothing changed

As FOR SA understands it, members had only minutes to read the proposal before being asked to respond. The Portfolio Committee did not reject it. It treated the response as progress, on condition that excluded stakeholders be brought in, that the Commission's commitments be tested against what actually happens, and that the religious sector, not the Commission, lead the process.

None of those conditions was met before the hearings went ahead. Six days later, the Cape Town hearings began on schedule, and Gauteng followed. No previously excluded organisation has been co-opted, and the Committee's composition, mandate and Terms of Reference remain unchanged. In FOR SA's view, the Portfolio Committee could have intervened more firmly, and still can.

One Gauteng leader put it plainly: "If Dr Mkhize said... include everybody, let everybody feel included, reform the Section 22 committee, why are they going on?" Parliament did not tell the hearings to stop. But leaders expected reform, and they have met the same Committee running the same process. That is the source of their growing frustration.

What leaders found in the Section 22 hearings

In Cape Town, FOR SA observed the Committee spending up to two hours of each three-hour session promoting its framework, leaving participants five to ten minutes each.  At a Section 22 hearing in Cape Town in August, participants were told of a "rule of the house". Anyone intending to publish a statement, comment or caption about the proceedings had first to submit it to the Section 22 Committee, "failing which there would be repercussions". FOR SA was in the room. When the rule was challenged, it was not withdrawn. Gauteng attendees report the same. The same restriction on recording reappeared in Gauteng. Known critics say they were passed over for the microphone. One spoke only because a sound technician handed him one. These are members of the public reporting what they saw, and they deserve to be taken seriously.

Problems with the public participation process

The conduct of Section 22 Committee members is more troubling still. In Cape Town, the presiding committee member interrupted presenters, including FOR SA's Head of Legal and Advocate Nadene Badenhorst, to argue with them. A Committee member subsequently circulated a message on social media describing participants as working from "scripts", as "bullied" and as recipients of "so much misinformation". Closing remarks sought to reduce the opposition to FOR SA alone, and on two occasions members suggested that a submission would carry less weight because it agreed with FOR SA. One bishop who attended has lodged a signed complaint with the Portfolio Committee saying he and others were rebuked for "not thinking for themselves".

A public participation process exists to receive what people say, not to discount it by labelling those who say it. Those who agree with FOR SA are capable of thinking for themselves, and several have since written to the PC COGTA asking that their submissions be taken at face value. Every submission is entitled to be considered on its merits, whoever else agrees with it. That includes the 23,545 written submissions recorded by DearSouthAfrica. As at 22 September 2026, 96.66% of them opposed the process, which the Committee's 4 August presentation to Parliament did not mention. Public hearings are not a referendum decided by whoever is handed the microphone.

The Religious Freedom Imbizo – what it is and what it is not

A Religious Freedom Imbizo will take place at the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town on Saturday 3 October. It is convened by the ARTLC under Bishop Templeton Mbekwa, with Dr Mkhize as keynote speaker. FOR SA is not involved in organising it, but welcomes it and will attend and make a submission. It is, however, a privately organised meeting, not the separate engagement the Portfolio Committee promised, which should still take place. What is said on Saturday should go on the formal record. However, no joint statement should be presented as the view of the religious sector as a whole. The same standard applies to the Section 22 Committee: attending is not endorsing, and no single body speaks for the sector.

What Parliament should do now

Parliament should hold the process to its own August words: test the Commission's commitments against leaders' experience, on the record; hold the promised engagement with the sector; and ask the Commission to show what has changed before the Section 22 Committee's Limpopo hearings open on 12 October.

The religious sector is not asking to be unaccountable. It already has its own South African Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms and a Code of Conduct for Religions in South Africa, completed in 2019 following Parliament's 2018 recommendation. The position is simple. Accountability, “Yes. State regulation of religion under another name, “No”. The sooner the Portfolio Committee and the Commission recognise this, the better.