Confusion is however created in section 2 of the Regulations, and this also forms the basis of the contradiction, which considers an application in terms of section 4 of the Act as an application for the registration of the political party as a prerequisite to accessing public funding. The subtitle of section 2 of the Regulations is “Application for registration of political party”. The substantive party of that section then goes on to say that “An application in terms of section 4 of the Act for the registration of a political party shall be in the form set out in the Schedule …” In section 3 of the Regulations there are references to ‘registered political parties’. The Regulations have assumed, wrongly in the Consultant’s view, that applications by political parties in terms of section 4 of the Act are applications for the registration of the political parties. The applications are in fact applications for funding and not for registration. The Act does not make any reference to the registration of political parties by the Minister of Justice or indeed any other person. Where the Minister of Justice is of the view that a political party qualifies for public funding, he/she does not ‘register’ it, rather he/she notifies the political party that it qualifies for funding39. Another source of confusion created by the Regulations is that whereas the Act, in section 4, provides that political parties may submit their applications for funding to the Minister of Justice “not later than the end of the financial year in which a general election is held”, the Regulations require the application to contain information relating to the names of the political parties’ candidates “for election in the forthcoming general election”. Under section 4 of the Act, it would appear that a political party may apply for funding at any time before or after a general election, as long as it does not apply later than the end of the financial year in which the general election is held. It would however only make sense for a political party to apply for funding after the general election since it will then be in a position to know whether it qualifies for public funding. On the other hand, the requirement in the Regulations that the application should contain information relating to the concerned political party’s candidates for election in the ‘forthcoming general election’ presupposes that the application must be made before the general election. Another notable aspect of the Act, which we have previously noted, is the prohibition of political parties, members of a political party or candidates from 39 It would appear that this contradiction might have arisen from the fact that the Regulations were made on the basis of the repealed Act and were not revised and updated consequent to the enactment of the current Act. The Minister of Justice’s second reading speech in respect of the repealed Act suggests that the intention when public funding of political parties was first introduced was for parties to be registered with the Minister before a general election in order to access public funding – see Parliamentary Debates Volume 19, No. 20, 1302. See also United Parties v Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Others, supra, at p.261 where the court interpreted sections 3 and 4 of the repealed Act as requiring the registration of political parties wishing to benefit from public funding. 15