Ipid not fully protected — McBride
THE laws regulating Ipid did not protect the police watchdog adequately from political interference, says its suspended head Robert McBride’s lawyers in court papers.
THE laws regulating the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) did not protect the police watchdog adequately from political interference, suspended Ipid head Robert McBride’s lawyers said in court papers filed before the Constitutional Court.
The court will have the final say on how far the Constitution goes in insulating the directorate — a crucial institution in holding the state’s coercive power to account — from political interference.
Mr McBride was suspended in March last year on allegations that he had covered up the alleged involvement of senior Hawks officials in the unlawful renditions of four Zimbabweans.
An initial Ipid report pointed the finger at the Hawks officers, but a second version appeared to exonerate them.
The rendition scandal led to the early exit of former Hawks head Anwa Dramat, with a negotiated package, and disciplinary processes against other officials including the Gauteng head of the elite investigative unit, Shadrack Sibiya, who was fired.
In December last year, the High Court in Pretoria ruled that the laws that had allowed the minister to suspend and remove Mr McBride unilaterally were unconstitutional. However, the order was suspended until the country’s highest court had had its say.
In heads of argument, filed with the Constitutional Court last week, Mr McBride’s counsel, Steven Budlender, referred to two previous judgments on the Hawks.
Mr Budlender said Ipid should be at least as independent as the Hawks — since the Constitution expressly required Ipid to be independent while, with the Hawks, its independence was only implied.
Both Ipid and the Hawks had a mandate to fight corruption within the state, he said. To discharge that mandate effectively, both bodies had to be independent. And security of tenure for the head of a police watchdog was an essential condition of independence, and was recognised all over the world.
Yet the Independent Police Investigative Directorate Act allowed the minister to suspend and remove the Ipid head without any involvement of Parliament.
The act did not contain sufficient safeguards to ensure the Ipid head could act independently, he said. “It affords Parliament no role in this process whatsoever.”
A similar provision in the Hawks legislation had been struck down by the Constitutional Court for exactly that reason, Mr Budlender said. Police Minister Nathi Nhleko had argued in an earlier submission that the Constitution had assigned political responsibility for policing to the minister.
But Mr Budlender — again referring to the highest court’s previous judgments on the Hawks — said political accountability and institutional independence were not mutually exclusive.
The Constitution demanded adequate independence — “insulation from a degree of management by political actors that threatens imminently to stifle the independent functioning” of the body.
The renditions investigation was a “politically charged” one. Special protective measures were required “to guard against such executive interference”, he said.