Lands and Titles amendment bill tabled before Parliament

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One of the bills submitted under the Certificate of Urgency is the amendment Bill for the Land and Titles Act 2020 to address issues identified following the passing and the commencement of the principal Act. 

This is in particular to the appointment of the judges of the Land and Titles Court (LTC) and the savings and transition of the Deputy Presidents and Samoan judges appointed under the Land and Titles Act 1981  to the new LTC structure under the principal Act and the Constitution. 

This is outlined in the summary of the pre-sitting session held on Monday.

According to the Acting CEO Leota Pelenato Paulo a total of 8 Clauses with 3 overarching aims; to provide for the appointment, terms and conditions, suspension, and removal of the LTC judges; to provide for savings and transitional provisions relating to the Deputy Presidents and Samoan judges appointed under the repealed Act; to correct a few references to ensure consistency between the English and Samoan versions of the principal Act. 

In conclusion, Leota informed the Speaker and Members that there are numerous other amendments that will be made to the principal act, however, these are the immediate amendments to ensure the progress of work and duties for the Land and Titles Court flows. 

At the conclusion of the Acting CEO’s presentation, there were few matters raised by Members which included: – the need to also review and amend the Constitution, specifically Article 104 which provides for the Land and Titles Court – to ensure amendments and Bills passed by Parliament are error-free before the Head of State assents such copies, to avoid such occurrence that happened with the Land and Titles Bill 2020. 

To conduct a thorough review of the Act to ensure typos and grammatical errors are removed and corrected to ensure the intentions of the bill is made clear.