Inmates’ computer rights at issue
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) will, later this year, hear arguments over whether prisoners should be allowed to use their personal computers in their cells to further their education.
Present policy either prohibits or limits computer use by inmates who have registered to study. But in two previous matters, judges have ruled that this constitutes unfair discrimination. These rulings have now been taken on appeal by the minister of justice and correctional services, the national commissioner and the heads of the relevant prisons.
All the papers were filed before the revelations that Facebook rapist Thabo Bester had run a multimillion-rand scam business, using a laptop, from a cell at Mangaung Correctional Centre.
Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), which is representing one prisoner, is concerned with the rights of inmates to access education, which plays a significant role in their preparation for re-entry into society. Their client, Mbalenhle Sydney Ntuli, secured an order in the High Court in Johannesburg in 2019 that he is entitled to use his personal computer, without a modem, in his single cell as long as he is a registered student.
The head of LHR’s penal reform programme, Nabeelah Mia, said the state had been unable to prove security concerns linked to access to laptops. She said the Bester case highlighted issues the department needed to consider for monitoring mechanisms. Initially, Ntuli was authorised to use his personal computer in his cell to study but after he was transferred to another section of the prison, he was told he had to study in the computer centre. Ntuli said this cut his study time.
The government respondents said to allow prisoners access to laptops in their cells was a security threat they could smuggle modems in or use illegal cellphones to create hot spots. But Acting Judge
Molefe Matsemela said computers could be screened.
The second matter which the minister is appealing is a ruling – and dismissal of an appeal – in favour of “Boeremag” member Lets Pretorius and his two sons, Johan and Wilhelm Pretorius, giving them the right to use their personal computers to study.
In heads of argument, filed with the SCA, LHR says the previous court rulings were correct: prisoners retain the constitutional rights of an ordinary citizen except for liberty rights. But the government appellants insist the rulings do not give due consideration to the ability of correctional officers to monitor computers.
The Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services says the right to education may not be denied and personal computers are a necessary tool.
Right to education may not be denied and personal computers are necessary tool