No parole for unrepentant and unremorseful murderers who have no understanding of the enormity of their crime!

Today the North Gauteng High Court Judge Nicoline Janse Van Niewenhuisen dismissed the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Advocate Michael Masutha’s application for leave to appeal against the judge’s decision to release Janusz Walus on parole.  The SACP and the family of our late General Secretary Comrade Chris Hani, both as interested and affected parties, joined the Minister’s application for leave to appeal.

Janusz Walus and Clive Derby-Lewis cold-bloodedly murdered Comrade Chris Hani on 10 April 1993. They were sentenced to death.  Their death sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment; thanks to Comrade Chris Hani’s struggle for the protection of the right to life, the supreme right Walusz and Derby-Lewis denied him through the murder.

The SACP is not surprised by the judgement delivered by Judge Nicoline Janse Van Niewenhuisen today. After observing how she had been handling herself from the outset in handling the matter, and particularly on Tuesday 12 April, the SACP expressed itself as follows:

“The SACP is... disappointed at the continued negative attitude displayed by Judge Nicoline Janse Van Niewenhuisen towards the legal team of the Minister as opposed to the cordial reception she accords Walus's legal team. This time the attitude, which is worrying to the SACP, was combined with a display of irritation towards the appeal.” 

The matter is not over!

The matter is now heading to the Supreme Court of Appeals where the SACP and Comrade Chris Hani’s family will join the Minister’s petitioning of the judge’s decision. Walusz remains an unrepentant and unremorseful murderer who does not demonstrate any understanding of the enormity of his murder of Comrade Chris Hani.

This statement first appeared in Umsebenzi Online, 14 April 2016 

North Gauteng High Court judgements on Walusz Janus –

The unrepentant and unremorseful murderer who has no regard to the enormity of his crime   

In her profile published by the Bar News, Pretoria Bar, North Gauteng High Court Judge Nicoline Janse Van Nieuwenhuizen SC who today dismissed the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Advocate Michael Masutha’s application – joined by the SACP and Comrade Chris Hani’s family – for leave to appeal against her judgement to release Janusz Walus on parole, she mentions that: “Janus Walus’s first appearance after the shooting of Chris Hani was in her court” in Boksburg where she was a prosecutor. The SACP has a serious problem with this, and will lodge a complaint with the Judicial Services Commission to look into the matter and its implications.

It is our belief as the SACP that Judge handled the matter with prejudice. From the outset, as we stated in our statement released Tuesday 12 April before she could deliver today’s judgement, Judge Nicoline Janse Van Nieuwenhuizen displayed a negative attitude against the legal team of the Minister of Justice and treated Walus’s legal team and its arguments with a cordial reception. On Tuesday 12 April she handled the application for leave to appeal with a display of irritation against it.

The two judgements she delivered in favour of Walus’s parole are consistent with that biased attitude. Legally, as showed in the representation made by Minister’s legal team, supported by the legal team of SACP and the Hani family, the judge handled Walus’s application to be released on parole as if she was handling an appeal and not a review.

Statement issued by the SACP, 14 April 2016