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Assembly discusses Civil Code Bill 2018 |18 July 2018

The National Assembly of Seychelles yesterday met for the first reading of the Civil Code of Seychelles Bill, 2018, the Civil Code (Consequences of Enactment) Bill, 2018 and the Curatelle Bill, 2018. The revised Civil Code of Seychelles is aimed at replacing the Civil Code of Seychelles Act 1975.

They then went on a committee meeting outside the chamber to discuss the details of the Civil Code further with international stakeholders who assisted the Civil Code Committee of Seychelles in drafting the bill.

It is to be noted that 90% of the Code remains the same with the amendments affecting only 10% of it.

The Assembly has sought the guidance of Professor Tony Angelo to guide them through the proceedings.

Professor Angelo is from the Faculty of Law of Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and he has been assisting the Bill’s revision committee in the drafting of the Bill.

He is being accompanied by his associate, Sarah Mead, and two Mauritian legal representatives, Sabir Kadel, a senior law reform officer and Rosario Domingue, the chief executive of the Mauritius Law Reform Commission.

Mauritius has also revised its Code Civil, which is similar to that of the Seychelles which was inherited from our French colonial past.

A whole week has been dedicated for this committee discussion and once finalised there will be a Second Reading of the Civil Code in the Chamber where members will carry out their final debate.

The revised Bill was undertaken by the Bills Committee of the National Assembly chaired by Bernard Georges and the Civil Code Revision Committee chaired by Chief Justice Mathilda Twomey.

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 committee sought the assistance of prominent foreign legal representatives and hence their presence.

As the whole Civil Code is a document of more than a thousand pages, the stakeholders have chosen more pertinent and sensitive issues to be debated on and which are being a challenge to the Supreme Court of Seychelles in its proceedings.

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 and land use matters’.

After going through a brief history of the Seychelles Civil Code which dates back to 1806 based on the French principles ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ – and brought down to Seychelles through Mauritius, Mr Georges said the first significant change to the Code happened in 1975 by Great Britain in preparation for the Seychelles independence where the country was given a series of modern laws. It also saw the appearance of the Companies Act.

“Since 1976, we have been using the amended English civil code until some few years ago when the Supreme Court of Seychelles proposed a modernisation of certain areas of the Code due to ongoing changes in the country. The committee was then set up for that purpose and used the theory of law established over the years to come up with new articles for the Code,” said Mr Georges.

Professor Angelo said his team’s task was to inform the committee on measures of research and then to put the decisions of the committee into the Code line form. And the result is the Bill that you have before you,” he said.

Professor Angelo said there are provisions in the current Code which if challenged in the Supreme Court would undoubtedly be found to be void on grounds of breach of fundamental rights.

“There was a strong desire to modernise the current provisions but to also conform to the basic constitutional principles of Seychelles,” he said.

Members then went through the various amended topics while Professor Angelo clarified any queries they had.

 

 

 

 

 

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