FAQ · Politics & Government 13

The South African Health Products Regulatory Authority, SAHPRA, is an entity of the National Department of Health and a Schedule 3A public entity set up so that human and animal health sit at the centre of its work. It regulates health products intended for people and animals, licenses manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors of medicines, medical devices, radiation-emitting devices and radioactive nuclides, and oversees clinical trials in a way that fits national medicines policy. SAHPRA took on the roles of the former Medicines Control Council and the Directorate of Radiation Control, and it reports to the Minister of Health through its Board. Under the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965, as amended, and the Hazardous Substances Act 15 of 1973, it monitors, evaluates, investigates, inspects, registers and controls medicines, complementary medicines, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics, clinical trials and radiation control. The authority describes safety, efficacy and quality as the three pillars that health products must meet. The Medicines Act also requires veterinary medicines to be produced, distributed and used without compromising human or animal health, and antimicrobials registered under that Act for use in animals may be administered or prescribed only by a veterinarian.

A National Department of Health notice, reference EDP24062025/01, says the Primary Healthcare and Adult Hospital Level Standard Treatment Guidelines and Essential Medicines List recommend only a copper intrauterine device or levonorgestrel for emergency contraception, and that these recommendations replace those in the 2012 National Contraceptive Clinical Guidelines. The notice says emergency contraception after pregnancy is excluded, that a pregnancy test must be done for all women and female adolescents, and that children must be tested and given emergency contraception from Breast Tanner Stage III. A copper device is to be inserted as soon as possible after unprotected intercourse and no later than five days, or levonorgestrel is given by mouth as one dose of one and a half milligrams, likewise as soon as possible and no later than five days. If the client vomits within two hours, the levonorgestrel dose is repeated, and women are told that a period should be on time, is rarely delayed, and should not be more than seven days late, in which case they should come back for a pregnancy test. The notice adds that the combined oral contraceptive ethinylestradiol 50 micrograms plus norgestrel 500 micrograms, the Ovral tablet, is no longer supported. The June 2025 Master Health Product List prices a copper device from Bayer at 248 rand and a single levonorgestrel tablet from Viatris Healthcare at 20 rand and 12 cents, and provinces and healthcare facilities are asked to share the guidance with healthcare professionals.

On 28 November 2025 the South African Government said the National Disaster Management Centre would host the Africa, Europe and Middle East Earthquake Response Exercise from 1 to 5 December 2025 in Gqeberha, at Nelson Mandela University in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality in the Eastern Cape. The advisory placed the exercise in the programme of the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group, which United Nations General Assembly Resolution 57/150 tasked with strengthening international cooperation on urban search and rescue in major disasters. It called the event South Africa's largest disaster readiness simulation to date and a step in the country's role as a continental hub for emergency response, under Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Velenkosini Hlabisa. The planned scenario was a large earthquake in a densely populated urban area, then flooding, hazardous-material incidents and service interruptions, testing urban search and rescue, flood and water rescue, emergency medical response, evacuation and shelter, humanitarian relief, and coordination between agencies. The exercise was also described as a check of national protocols for requesting, receiving and coordinating international support, and as a chance to apply the group's methods and United Nations disaster-assessment and coordination methods with national, provincial and municipal responders plus international teams. Minister Hlabisa said hosting the exercise highlighted South Africa's commitment to global disaster cooperation and to protecting lives by sharpening coordination.

The City of Cape Town defines a demonstration as 15 people or less and a gathering as a procession or assembly of more than 15 people, and it requires notice before either is held. Notice must be given no less than seven days before the date, or 48 hours before if seven days is not possible, and the organisation must appoint a convener to arrange the event. The notice form must comply with the Regulation of Gatherings Act, should show where a petition will be handed to a recipient, and must include certified copies of the identity documents of the convener, the deputy convener and the chief marshall. The papers can be delivered by hand to the Public Protection Unit, third floor, Foyer H, Civic Centre, 12 Hertzog Boulevard, Cape Town, or emailed to the petitions address the City lists, and the Public Participation Unit then sends the notice to the South African Police Service, the metropolitan police and, if a public road will be used, the traffic department. The page also says a demonstration or gathering may not take place in a building where a courtroom is situated, or in the open air within a 100 metre radius of that building, on a weekday other than a public holiday, unless the district magistrate, the Chief Magistrate in Cape Town, or the Director-General of the Office of the President has given permission. An officer who fears serious traffic disruption, injury, property damage, or that police and traffic officers could not contain those threats may call the convener to a meeting about prohibiting the event, an appeal can be made to a magistrate's court within 24 hours of the prohibition notice, and hindering, interfering with, obstructing or resisting a police member or a marshal can bring a fine of up to 20,000 rand or imprisonment for up to a year.

The Road Traffic Infringement Agency sets out options under the AARTO Act when someone receives an infringement notice, which it also calls a ticket, and the same options are described for a courtesy letter, an enforcement order or a warrant of execution. One option is to enquire whether any outstanding traffic fines stand in your name or whether a fine was already paid. Paying within 32 days brings a discount of 50 percent. If you received the ticket but were not the driver, you may nominate the actual driver who committed the infringement or the person who was in control of the vehicle. If you believe there are reasonable grounds for cancelling the ticket, you may submit a representation explaining why you should not be liable for the penalty on the infringement notice, and the agency forwards that representation to an independent representations officer. You can also elect to be tried in court when the infringement notice is issued, when a courtesy letter arrives, or when a representation for the infringement fails.

The Department of Home Affairs photograph sheet for passports and identity documents says prints must be 35 mm wide and 45 mm high, not more than one month old, and a close-up of the head and the top of the shoulders so that the face takes up 70 to 80 percent of the frame. Passports need two identical colour photographs, while identity documents need two identical photographs that may be colour or black and white, and the sheet says black-and-white identity photographs must meet the same rules. The picture must show natural colour, both eyes open and clear with no hair across the face, the person facing square to the camera rather than over a shoulder or tilted, and both edges of the face, against a light grey or plain cream background with even light and no shadows, flash reflection or red-eye. You must be alone in the frame, look straight at the camera with a neutral expression and a closed mouth, and the template puts the head at least 29 mm high and no more than 34 mm. Glasses are allowed only if the eyes stay fully visible, with no dark tint, no heavy frames and no flash reflection, and a head covering is not permitted except for religious reasons, in which case the face from the bottom of the chin to the top of the forehead and both edges must still show. Prints should be sharp, on high-quality paper, free of ink marks, creases and damage, and the department says photographs printed at home are not likely to be acceptable.

A notary public in South Africa is an admitted attorney who has passed the notary examination, been admitted by the High Court, and been registered with the Master of the High Court under the Notaries Act. The office carries an official seal and covers authenticating signatures and documents, certifying copies, administering oaths, drawing up antenuptial contracts and registering notarial bonds. Because that Act is national, those powers are the same whichever division of the High Court admitted the practitioner. A notary who does not hold a current Legal Practice Council practising certificate is acting unlawfully, and the Master keeps the register of notaries together with the official seal record. South Africa acceded to the Hague Apostille Convention in 1995, and the notary authenticates the underlying document, while the apostille itself is issued by the High Court or, for some categories, by DIRCO, with documents for countries outside the convention going on to DIRCO legalisation. Before relying on a notarial act, the usual check is current admission and a practising certificate on the Council's public roll.

The Department of Employment and Labour says the Basic Conditions of Employment Act requires workers to receive at least 21 consecutive days of annual leave each year, or instead one day for every 17 days worked, or one hour for every 17 hours worked. The Act covers employers and workers, but not members of the National Defence Force, the National Intelligence Agency or the South African Secret Service, and not unpaid volunteers working for a charity. Its annual-leave rules also do not apply to a worker who works fewer than 24 hours a month. The employer and the worker should agree when the leave is taken, and if they cannot agree the employer makes the final decision. Leave must be granted no later than six months after the end of the annual leave cycle, a 12-month period counted from the date employment began. An employer may not pay wages instead of granting the leave, except when employment ends, and a public holiday cannot be counted as annual leave.

On 3 October 2025 the Constitutional Court declared sections 25, 25A, 25B and 25C of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997 unconstitutional in the Van Wyk and Commission for Gender Equality cases. Those sections had given a birth mother at least four consecutive months of unpaid maternity leave, ten days to the other parent, ten weeks of adoption leave to one adoptive parent, and a similar split for commissioning parents under a surrogate agreement. The court gave Parliament 36 months to pass a remedy and, until then, read an interim arrangement into the Act. A single parent, or the only employed parent, gets at least four consecutive months of parental leave, while two employed parents share four months and 10 days, taken together or in sequence as they agree, or divided as equally as possible if they do not agree. A woman who is giving birth may start that leave from four weeks before the birth, or earlier if medically required, and may not return to work for six weeks afterwards unless a medical practitioner certifies that she is fit. The same four months for one parent, or four months and 10 days shared by two, is set out for adoption of a child under two and for commissioning parents, and the account says the judgment replaces the label maternity leave with parental leave in these sections.

The Electoral Commission told IOL that asylum-seeker status does not give anyone the right to vote in South African elections, and that only South African citizens aged 18 or older who are on the voters' roll may vote. Registration itself requires South African citizenship, people may register from the age of 16, and they may vote only after turning 18. A voter must also hold an accepted South African identity document or a temporary identity certificate. The commission said the 2026 local government elections were scheduled for 4 November and asked the public to check election claims on its official platforms rather than on social media. IOL reported that a Constitutional Court judgment on 7 July, in the Scalabrini Centre case, set aside several Refugees Act provisions that had kept some asylum claims from a merits decision, but that the ruling does not make an undocumented foreign national a voter and does not confer citizenship. The article distinguishes recognition as a refugee from merely applying for asylum or holding papers that allow an asylum claim to be processed.

ICASA's consumer-protection unit deals with complaints in broadcasting, telecommunications and postal services, and a person may complain about a provider the authority licenses in those fields. Telecommunications matters it lists include network coverage, dropped calls, line installation, activation, transfer and suspension, mobile-number portability, and bills for data, voice and international roaming. For a telecommunications or postal complaint you must first complain to the provider, get a reference number, and allow 14 working days. You may refer the matter to ICASA only if it is still unresolved or the reply is unsatisfactory, and the complaint must be in writing, whether lodged on the website, posted, or handed in at an office. The authority says it acknowledges the complaint and assigns a reference number within 48 hours, sends it to the licensee within two working days, and then asks whether you accept the provider's proposed resolution. If the dispute continues, ICASA may set a voluntary alternative-dispute-resolution hearing and afterwards decide whether to send the case to the Complaints and Compliance Committee, while contract terms, faulty handsets and misleading advertising are pointed to the National Consumer Commission instead.

On 15 July 2026 Smile FM reported that PRASA in the Western Cape was looking into allegations that a female passenger was manhandled by a security officer during a train journey, and that it was also worried about foreign nationals being intimidated by some commuters. PRASA said every reported incident is subject to a formal internal investigation, and that confirmed misconduct is followed by corrective and disciplinary action. The agency said its trains are available to everyone and that no commuter may be discriminated against or refused passage because of nationality, race, language, gender or any other personal characteristic, which it called a constitutional right. It asked people to report an incident on a daily commute to the area manager or the station office at any PRASA station, or on the public-transport toll-free line 0800 656 463. Criminal matters should also be reported to the South African Police Service. PRASA asked the public to let investigations proceed without interference and not to spread unverified information that could compromise them.

The Post Office says any person or organisation may complain about any aspect of its operations and services. A complaint can go to the branch manager where the service was rendered, to the National Contact Centre on 0860 111 502, by email to the customer-services address the office publishes, or by letter to PO Box 10 000, Pretoria, 0001. The office asks for the complainant's full name, postal address, telephone number, fax and email, the branch name, the nature of the incident, and the outcome the customer expects. Under the Postal Regulator's customer-care standard, the complaint should be resolved within five working days of receipt. If that is not possible, the customer is told within three working days what action is planned. Someone who is still not satisfied may take the dispute to the Postal Regulator, which the page lists as ICASA Consumer Complaints in Highveld Park, Centurion, on 012 568 3000 or 012 568 3001.