Committee adopts FIC bill with minor tweaks
The second step is a debate, probably next week, in the National Assembly on the slightly amended form of the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Bill
After much heated debate, Parliament’s standing committee on finance finally adopted a slightly amended form of the Financial Intelligence Centre (FIC) Amendment Bill on Tuesday. Minor changes were introduced into the bill by the committee, which did not agree that the provision for warrantless searches was unconstitutional as President Jacob Zuma had suggested might be the case when he referred the bill back to Parliament in November. The president’s concern was that warrantless searches — which are allowed in a raft of other laws, including the Criminal Procedure Act — could represent an unjustifiable invasion of the privacy of the individual searched, especially when this took place on private premises. The legal opinion sought from senior counsel by the Treasury and Parliament agreed there was nothing unconstitutional about the bill as it was adopted by Parliament in May. However, Jeremy Gauntlett SC, for the Treasury, proposed that minor amendments could be made to clarify the ...
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