Selebi: new legislative review of medical parole needed

The latest controversy surrounding former National Police Commissioner and convicted fraudster, Jackie Selebi, raises serious questions regarding the possible need to review the Correctional Services Act provisions dealing with the granting and conditions of medical parole. 

In a conversation with The Times published today Mr Selebi is quoted as saying:

"I am not bedridden because I am not sick... Besides this (dialysis) my health is fine... I hope my health continues to improve". 

At the time of his release last year, the Department of Correctional Services said its decision to release Mr Selebi was based on the fact that he had "a medical condition which is terminal, chronic, progressive and has deteriorated or reached an irreversible state". 

This effectively created the impression that Mr Selebi was on his deathbed, released to be with his family and be made comfortable until his imminent demise.

Now it appears that Mr Selebi - the man Judge Meyer Joffe, when handing down judgement on him in 2010 described as "an embarrassment to the office (he) occupied" - is not, in fact, critically ill anymore. 

Furthermore, with the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS) 2012/13 Annual Report revealing nearly 1,500 ‘natural deaths' in South Africa's Prisons in the last two years alone - one simply cannot help but wonder whether the politically connected, like Mr Selebi, are receiving preferential treatment to ordinary inmates. 

The Correctional Services Act currently does not require convicted criminals who have been granted medical parole to undergo mandatory periodic medical examinations, to determine the continued status of their health. 

Section 79(7) of the Act (the ‘Shaik clause') also expressly prohibits the cancellation of medical parole on account of improved medical condition alone.

Surely these provisions have to be reviewed. In many international jurisdictions, such as Canada, medical parole is automatically cancelled upon proof that a person's health has sufficiently improved.

I will today write to the Minister of Correctional Services, Sbu Ndebele, asking him to appoint a legislative review panel to consider changes to the Correctional Services Act relating to the granting and cancellation of medical parole in South Africa. 

The ‘Shaik clause' must go. We cannot allow medical parole to be used as a political bail-out. 

Statement issued by James Selfe MP, DA Shadow Minister of Correctional Services, October 8 2013

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