CITY OF CAPE TOWN’S SIU: A legitimate policing unit would not operate in the shadows, unaccountable

Mayor Hill-Lewis is wrong to suggest that my call for an investigation into the City’s SSIU or SIU is a plan to undermine crime fighting in Cape Town.

On the contrary it is precisely to improve crime-fighting.

If the City’s SIU operates outside of the law, taking the law into its own hands, then this is criminal activity and nothing more than rogue vigilantism.

Constitutionalists are usually quick to recognise the dangers of people taking the law into their own hands.

Over the past 9 months I have submitted 5 sets of questions to the MEC for Community Safety, Albert Fritz, about what the SIU is and where it derives its investigation powers from.

Municipal Police Services are established and operate in terms of the Police Act. The Police Act gives the MEC the powers, and duty, of oversight. The policing functions of Municipal Police Services are set out in the Act and the policing powers of the municipal officers are determined by regulations promulgated under the Criminal Procedure Act.

In response to my parliamentary questions, MEC Fritz said that the SIU is not part of the Municipal Police Services and therefore is not accountable to him or subject to his oversight.

Fritz declined to answer my questions on the basis that he has no authority to do so. At the end of 2021, the Speaker of the Western Cape Provincial Legislature “disallowed” any more questions from me about the SIU.

My questions are really quite simple: if the SIU is not a Municipal Police Service, unaccountable to the MEC or the Provincial Parliament, but engaged in criminal investigations and intelligence gathering then where does it derive its crime fighting powers from and under what law does it operate?

Hill-Lewis’s response to my call for an investigation into the SIU exposes his lack of understanding of the law and is a dangerous contempt for our constitutional order.

Cape Town deserves to be led by a Mayor who accepts that he and his government cannot pick and choose which laws they will comply with and which laws they don’t regard as applying to them.

If the City of Cape Town’s SIU is a legitimate municipal police service operating within the law then I call on Hill-Lewis to explain what its policing powers are and where they are derived from.

A legitimate policing unit would not operate in the shadows, unaccountable.

If the City’s SIU unit is doing our crime-prevention responsibilities proud, as Hill-Lewis claims - then the Hill-Lewis must answer some very simple questions:

- Why does it operate outside of the municipal police service?

- Where does it derive its policing powers from?

I will fully support a successful and lawful crime-prevention unit that operates within the law and is open to scrutiny. None of us should accept a secret unit that apparently operates only on the instructions of a political party that doesn’t accept the law applies to them.

Statement issued by Brett Herron, GOOD: Secretary-General, 7 January 2022