Revised Civil Code of Seychelles scrutinised before being tabled to the House |12 June 2018

The proposals of a revised civil code of Seychelles aimed at replacing the Civil Code of Seychelles Act 1975 was discussed during a working session held last week.

This was between the Bills Committee of the National Assembly chaired by Bernard Georges, the civil code revision committee chaired by Chief Justice Mathilda Twomey and the Vice-President of the Republic, Vincent Meriton, who will be proposing the Bill to the House.

The NA Bills Committee was also joined by speaker and deputy speaker Nicholas Prea and Ahmed Afif respectively.

The Seychelles Civil Code Bill 2017 which is expected to provide for the civil rights of Seychellois in modern form and appropriately reflect and protect current social institutions, is expected to be put to the National Assembly at the end of this month. Debates on it are expected to begin in July.

The Civil Code of Seychelles provides the basic rules of law of Seychelles for the relationship between people. Since its enaction in 1975, much has happened in Seychelles since then. Therefore it is appropriate to review the civil code in order to modernise it and ensure it reflects the current social circumstances of the country.

The revision exercise began in 2013 and proceeded with a series of committee meetings, all of which were open to public consultations.

The proposals that came out were that the Code will be consistent with the supreme laws of the Constitution of Seychelles and will use the language which is consistent with Seychelles practice.

As the whole Civil Code is a document in more than a thousand of pages, the stakeholders have chosen more pertinent and sensitive issues to be debated upon among themselves and in the National Assembly.

These are ‘Equalising the rights of children; Sharing of property in ‘en ménage’ relationship; The rights of co-owners;Testamentary freedom – the ability to dispose freely of property on death; Land use matters.

In introducing the revised Code, Mr Meriton said the government is working with the committee to get the right legislation that promotes transparency, accountability and good governance.

“The Seychelles Civil Code Bill 2017 provides us a modern way of providing civil rights to Seychellois. As we all know the present civil code does not always provide citizens with the right provision based on what the Constitution is because it was set up in 1975 and the Constitution in 1994,” said VP Meriton.

Chief Justice Twomey said it has been a very long journey for the civil code committee since discussions started on the proposed amendment way back in 2013.

“This is the fruit of our work. We were assisted all along the way by Professor Tony Angelo who has done a lot of work in small states. The Bill is written in accessible English which everyone can understand,” she said. Professor Angelo is from the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Explaining what essentially will come to the National Assembly, Mr Georges said it will be a short Bill that will basically say the Civil Code 1975 is repealed and is replaced by this new one, essentially but making one or two consequential amendments.