I was one year old when Chris Hani was brutally assassinated on April 10 1993. My grandmother tells the story of how, upon hearing the news, my activist mother sat on the stoep outside our shack in Meadowlands, weeping, cradling me in her arms.
I have no memory of that incident and I certainly couldn’t have understood at the time the significance of the day. But from listening to the accounts of those who were there, it was a dark day – one that has left an indelible scar in the history of SA. Thus, it is understandable that on Monday, when the Constitutional Court made the unanimous decision to order that Hani’s killer, Janusz Waluś, be placed on parole within 10 days, many in the country were angered and horrified.
Waluś, a Polish immigrant, moved to SA at the height of apartheid in 1981 and subsequently joined the National Party and the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging, commonly known as the AWB. The AWB was a staunch Afrikaner nationalist paramilitary organisation founded in 1973. It was responsible for the murder of many black people, particularly towards and during the process of negotiations to end apartheid.
Waluś and Clive Derby-Lewis, another right-wing extremist, were convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, respectively. Waluś was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after the abolition of the death penalty in SA.
The new sentence meant that Waluś became eligible for parole in 2005. However, his parole applications have consistently been denied, resulting in numerous legal battles. In 2020, the minister of justice and correctional services, Ronald Lamola, rejected his parole application once more – a decision that chief justice Raymond Zondo called “irrational” and which he has since rescinded. Painful though it may be, the decision by the ConCourt is correct.
Section 51 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (Act 105 and 1997) prescribes the minimum sentence for murder to 25 years. There have been very few cases where the sentence imposed surpassed the minimum sentence, and all have been exceptional cases of serial murders (or in cases like that of Ananias Mathe, serial attempted murder and other charges).
New legislation came into effect in 2012 stating that any prisoner who received a life sentence before 2004 can apply for parole, but only after serving at least 13 years and four months of their sentence. Waluś was convicted of Hani’s murder in October 1993. This means he has been in prison for 29 years – four years more than the prescribed minimum life sentence for murder. Having been sentenced before 2004, his first parole eligibility was in 2005.
The law must never be applied emotionally. Sentencing guidelines must apply regardless of who is on the receiving end. Impartiality in the application of law is sacrosanct. Equality before the law is a cornerstone of our constitution and a principle for which Hani fought. It is problematic to argue that Waluś, on the basis of who he killed rather than the crime he committed, should have different laws applied to him.
Allowing such reasoning sets parameters for a situation in which some lives are deemed more valuable than others. It’s true that Hani’s death was devastating to our country, but his is not a life more worthy than any other person's whose murderer is on parole.
And knowing his politics, Hani wouldn’t have wanted his life deemed more valuable – because if there was ever a man who didn’t believe that some animals are more equal than others, it was Hani. The Hani memorandum that got him suspended from uMkhonto weSizwe and expelled from the ANC in 1969 is the evidence. Waluś must be paroled – and live with his demons until death.
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