OSCAR PAROLE BATTLE
Defence prepares to fight minister in court
OSCAR Pistorius’s legal team are expected to fight tooth and nail to have him released from jail tomorrow.
His lawyer, Brian Webber, could not be reached late yesterday to confirm whether they would launch an urgent application in the high court in Pretoria to secure his release, but legal experts say there is no doubt this would end up in a legal fight.
Webber said last night he could not speak as the legal team were in a meeting.
Pistorius’s hopes of leaving his dingy prison cell for his uncle’s Waterkloof, Pretoria, mansion has been dashed on the eve of his release.
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha decided yesterday that Pistorius will remain in Kgosi Mampuru II Prison in Pretoria for now. He referred the decision to release him to the Correctional Supervision and Parole Review Board (CSPB) for review.
This means that the decision to place him under correctional supervision is suspended until the CSPB has made a decision.
According to a senior advocate, this could take months, as the board convenes only a few times a year.
“They do not sit all that often as there are numerous role-players who have to convene. Referring the matter to the CSPB means that his release is being halted. Pistorius will have to wait until they convene.”
The advocate, who cannot be named for ethical reasons, added, however, that the court, following an urgent application, could order Pistorius’s release pending the outcome of the review. If the minister succeeded, it would mean that Pistorius would have to go back to prison. “There is no way that his legal team will take this lying down,” he said.
Masutha, after obtaining legal advice, concluded that the decision to release Pistorius on correctional supervision was made prematurely.
Pistorius was sentenced to a fiveyear jail term in terms of section 276(1)(i) of the Criminal Procedure Act, which means that he had to serve at least one-sixth of his sentence before being released on correctional supervision.
“It is apparent that the decision to release him on August 21 (tomorrow) was made prematurely on June 5 this year. At the time that the decision was made, he had served only slightly more than six months of his sentence,” Masutha’s spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said.
The minister’s decision to look into Pistorius’s release was prompted by a petition he received from lobby group Women’s Movement of South Africa, which opposed Pistorius’s release during Women’s Month.
Meanwhile, the ANC Women’s League welcomed Masutha’s decision yesterday. “The ANCWL remains convinced that Judge Thokozile Masipa handed down an erroneous judgment and an extremely lenient sentence to Pistorius, setting a bad precedent in cases involving gender-based violence, especially in instances where women die at the hands of their partners,” the league said in a statement.
“The murder of Reeva Steenkamp at the hands of Oscar Pistorius is a sore reminder of the brutality meted out to, and the vulnerability of, many women in this country. We shall forever continue to call for the harshest possible sentences against those who perpetrate such violence against the vulnerable in our society,” it added.
Mhaga said while the grounds for the petition could not legally be sustained, the minister had to ensure the process followed to release Pistorius tomorrow was legally sound. It was concluded that the decision had been taken prematurely.
He said there was no legal basis upon which the decision was made, as the law was clear that he had to serve at least a sixth of his five-year jail term (10 months) before a decision could be made to approve or disapprove his release.
In the circumstances, the CSPB had to review the parole board’s decision, Mhaga said.
But the senior advocate said this reasoning didn’t make sense, as the parole board in most cases decided beforehand whether an inmate could be released on a certain date. “It is not as if he is being released before he had served his full time.”
He added that while the minister was empowered to refer the matter to the review board, he could not decide himself whether Pistorius should be released.
He said the department wasn’t obliged to release an inmate on parole or correctional supervision, but in the case of inmates sentenced under the same provision as Pistorius, it was usually done.
“If there are exceptional circumstances as to why an inmate should not be released after serving a sixth of his sentence, or if the board is of the view that the sentence served was too lenient, he could be refused parole,” he said.
Reuters reported that Pistorius’s family were disappointed that he would not be released tomorrow. “We are shocked and disappointed,” an unidentified family member said.