New law gives crime-busting unit autonomy

THE HAWKScrime-busting unit was sufficiently insulated from political interference, the Western Cape High Court heard yesterday.

Michael Donen SC, for Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa, said all the defects in the 2008 legislation that replaced the Scorpions with the Hawks, officially known as the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), had been remedied.

Last year, Parliament passed the SA Police Service Amendment Act, the government’s response to a Constitutional Court ruling that the 2008 act was defective. The case was brought by businessman Hugh Glenister.

The Concourt found that the Hawks would be open to undue political influence because of the unit’s structure and functioning.

After the act was amended, Glenister said he would continue to challenge it as he believed the Hawks would remain open to political influence.

The act gives the police minister the power to suspend the head of the Hawks. The minister can also dismiss the Hawks’ chief after an inquiry headed by a retired judge. Glenister and the Helen Suzman Foundation contend that the minister would have too much power over the unit.

Donen disagreed, and said the new law provided the DPCI with the right degree of autonomy.

Earlier, Donen argued that Parliament should have been made a respondent in the matter.

Kemp J Kemp, for President Jacob Zuma, also a respondent, did not agree. He said the government, and not Parliament, had been ordered to draw up the legislation by the Constitutional Court. Kemp said earlier that there was no threat that the Hawks would be subject to political interference.

“We don’t support the notion that, because the minister has these powers, that the head (of the Hawks) is in imminent threat of improper removal,” he told the court. – Sapa