“Police spend six months chasing a suspect and with the stroke of the pen the magistrate gives them bail. After they run, police are expected to find them again. Where will we find them?”
This is police minister Bheki Cele's frustration with the justice system which he blames for allowing a child murder crisis in SA.
Cele said while police have a role in curbing these crimes, the system is partly responsible as the department of justice and correctional services releases offenders on parole, only for them to reoffend.
In an interview with Sowetan this week after the publication of pictures of children who have been brutally killed in the country, Cele said he was frustrated by the current laws, which he said favoured offenders more than victims.
“The law will have to revisit itself. How can someone who is accused of raping a nine-year-old be released on bail? Look now what happened to [Bokgabo] Poo. If the perpetrator was not released on bail he would not have been able to hurt another child.
“How do you give someone like that bail? Certain categories of crime must not be considered for bail, including crimes against children and the police. In some countries there are no exceptions when it comes to these crimes.
“These liberal laws that many praise all over the world, I don’t think they favour us. I don’t think they favour victims. A person who is convicted of taking a life has the luxury of bathing with hot water in prison, eating three meals a day, studying and obtaining a PhD and they go to the best medical facilities while the families of the people they killed are left to suffer.”
Cele said while the police had a role to play in increasing preventive measures, the blame could not only be laid at their feet but also at the feet of magistrates and communities.
“When people make a call [complain] they call out for Cele, not for the person who granted bail. Not only is the system against us but we get backlash from communities as well.
“When we make these calls, we must make them to everybody, including the magistrates. Even the society must look within itself and call out those who commit these crimes.
“If the call is one-sided, criminals believe they are protected by society because they know that the call is on Cele and the government. Nobody is shouting at South Africans that are committing these crimes.”
Asked what he was doing to alleviate the problem, Cele said: “I don’t want to stand proud here but there is no ministry that calls izimbizo like ours. Because usually people who commit these crimes would be men, I say to them ‘I don’t know if you have a wife, a sister or a girlfriend, but one thing for sure you have a mother. All of us standing here have a mother. As you are about to do it, put your mother in the situation.
“We have discussions as a cluster with the justice minister [Ronald Lamola] and the head of prosecutions [Shamila Batohi] and commissioners and we talk much about these matters. You don’t know how much police are frustrated... because we as police bear the brunt of an unfavourable system and at the same time communities calling for our heads.”
He said he believed his ministry was trying its best but the odds were stacked against them by a justice system that continuously releases hard-core criminals back into society.
“I will forever wait and expect feedback from people and I will continue to respond and work without tiring. Anyway, people will not wake up in the morning and sing hallelujah Cele while a four-year-old is being buried.”
Cele said calls for him to step down were a political ploy.
“But to those who are genuinely making the call I say, I do not have a problem to go one day but my pain will not go because I have left the system... We need to work on a system that protects children and women as well as the elderly. We need to also include civil society in the law-making processes because it helps when people tell you what they think [needs to be done].”
National Prosecuting Authority national spokesperson Isaac Dhludhlu was sent questions on Tuesday and said Batohi's office was processing the inquiry and would respond, but had not done so at the time of going to print.
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
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