Reglement van Orde – Standing Orders of the Senate, Public Business 1977 by Senate of the Republic of South Africa

Reglement van Orde is the official 1977 edition of the Standing Orders for Public Business of the Senate of the Republic of South Africa. It was printed by order of the Senate and is presented in both Afrikaans and English, with the Afrikaans Reglement van Orde van die Senaat and the English Standing Orders of the Senate set out side by side.

The book contains the rules that governed the day-to-day work of the upper house. The contents cover the opening day and the reading of the proclamation, the election of the President of the Senate and other presiding officers, the oath or affirmation, prayers, sittings and adjournment of the House, government and private members’ business, petitions, questions, motions, the stages of public bills, financial business, consolidation and hybrid bills, the exchange of bills between the Senate and the House of Assembly, and the State President’s assent.

The Senate was abolished with effect from 1 January 1981, which makes this 1977 edition of the Reglement van Orde one of the last sets of rules issued for it. Copies were produced for the use of Senators and parliamentary officials rather than for general sale, and they turn up only rarely on the open market today.

This is a fine piece of South African parliamentary history for collectors of Africana and political material, researchers of the apartheid-era Parliament, law and parliamentary libraries, and anyone interested in how South Africa’s legislature worked before the constitutional changes of the 1980s.

Condition – Near Fine

The red textured boards are clean and bright, with crisp gilt titling and the gilt arms of the Republic of South Africa on the front board. There is light dust staining to the page edges and some foxing is present. A prior owner’s bookplate is pasted to the endpaper. A well-preserved copy of the Reglement van Orde, a scarce official publication.