High court slams ‘ignoring of child rights’

The provincial government continued with plans to close centres

THE Western Cape High Court has again slated the provincial government for its intention to place “children in need of care” in institutions with juvenile criminal offenders.

Judge Gayaat Salie-Hlophe hauled the provincial government over the coals for a second time after it had continued with plans to close four education centres, despite a previous ruling preventing it from doing so.

The judge had said that its intention to place vulnerable children in institutions with those awaiting trial amounted to a flagrant disregard for the constitution and infringed on children’s rights to security and freedom from violence.

Her initial ruling in August last year came after the Justice Alliance of SA (Jasa) applied to the court to reverse a decision by the province to close the centres, which housed more than 100 children in 2010.

Jasa went to court when the departments started implementing it last year.

Jasa and the Ottery Children’s Home made a second court application last week after the provincial govern- ment had allegedly continued with plans to close the centres.

Last Wednesday, Judge Salie-Hlophe reiterated her ruling delivered in August last year, saying: “Placing children in need of care who are not at risk of absconding does not justify that they be caged with juvenile criminal offenders.

“A child found to be in need of care would carry a stigma if he or she were housed in a facility together with children who have indulged in criminal activity and require rehabilitation.”

Judge Salie-Hlophe said placing the children together with awaiting-trial prisoners constitutes a flagrant disregard of section 12 of the constitution.

“Furthermore, placing such children with those who have transgressed the law results in the deprivation of their liberty and arguably a form of detention without trial,” she said.

The centres include Die Bult Centre in central Karoo, Eureka Centre in the Cape Winelands, Ottery Youth Care and Education Centre, and the Wellington Youth Centre.

Jasa spokesperson John Smyth said: “The judgment arises because the provincial government, with flagrant disregard for the earlier judgment, with wanton indifference to the taxpayers’ pocket, and a determination to defy the spirit of the court’s order, continued with their plans to alter the homes so that they could not be used for children in need of care and protection pending the outcome of the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal.

“No wonder the judge ordered that all such work should cease forthwith, and made a costs order in Jasa and Ottery’s favour.

“But Jasa finds it incredible that the Western Cape MECs should continue to sanction the spending of huge sums of public money and persist on a course of action which every day brings harm to innocent children.”