Cele challenges order
Internal investigations by ministers into lockdown rights infringements opposed
POLICE Minister Bheki Cele is appealing parts of a scathing judgment on the murder of Alexandra township resident Collins Khosa by members of the SANDF and the SAPS.
Details of Cele’s appeal have emerged in a report by the National Council of Provinces’ select committee on security and justice, which quotes Cele’s deputy, Cassel Mathale, stating that police were unhappy with a section of North Gauteng High Court Judge Hans Fabricius’s order.
”The deputy minister responded that the complainant (Khosa’s family) was seeking to restate the law in terms of what was expected from security and law enforcement during the lockdown, and how they should collaborate on this.
“(The) SAPS has complied with orders made in the judgment, for example (the) code of conduct and guidelines on the use of force,” reads the report signed on May 29 and which has been seen by Independent Media.
According to the report, Mathale informed the committee that the SAPS would be appealing a portion of the court order related to internal investigations contained in paragraph 6.1.2 of the judgment.
Cele is challenging Judge Fabricius’s order that he and Military Veterans
Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-nqakula internally investigate the treatment of any other person whose rights may have been infringed at the hands of members of the SANDF, the SAPS and/ or any metro police department during the state of national disaster.
Mathale assured the committee that as part of complying with the judgment, the police had set up a complaints mechanism, and that the SAPS had communicated with the public in respect of how they should report cases of police brutality.
They had also publicised the numbers which the public should use to report such matters, he said.
The Khosa family’s lawyer, Wikus Steyl, confirmed that he had received Cele’s application for leave to appeal Judge Fabricius’s judgment yesterday, and was still studying it.
Judge Fabricius lambasted the police and the SANDF and declared that all persons in the country during the state of national disaster were entitled to the rights of human dignity, life, not to be tortured and not be treated or punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way.
He said all the rights were non-derogable, even during states of emergency.
The case was brought by Khosa’s mother, Mphephu, the life partner of the father of three who died at age 40, Nomsa Montsha, and his brotherin-law Thabiso Muvhango, who was also assaulted by soldiers on the day Khosa died.
The office of the state attorney, on Cele’s behalf, previously demanded that Khosa’s family abandon the part of the judgment stating that Cele and Mapisa-nqakula probe acts of brutality committed by police and soldiers during the lockdown, in order to expedite and shorten the anticipated application for leave to appeal.
However, this has been rejected by Khosa’s family, who threatened to seek a personal costs order against Cele for his attempt to evade his legal and constitutional duties through a meritless appeal.
Explaining his decision to appeal the order last month, Cele indicated that police had complied with 95% of Judge Fabricius’s judgment.