Balfour declaration Shaiks credibility of rule of law

“I am not going to make the reports of the doctors available. I heard Jody Kollapen from the HRC talking about that this must be a public thing — but for goodness sake do we want to be that silly, would you do that to your sister or brother if they were terminally ill — give out information which is patient-doctor information, would we go so unethical, why would we do that?” (SABC — Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour)

There are two reasons why the minister is patently wrong to reject the calls from Kollapen and opposition parties to release the medical information forming the basis upon which the parole board granted convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik medical parole.

Firstly Shaik is not just someone’s brother or sister but a known associate of the future president of this country. Someone who has been linked to ANC President Jacob Zuma with regard to serious allegations of misconduct. Someone that Zuma has vested interests in protecting. Accordingly if correctional services and the parole board have deviated from Section 79 of the Correctional Services Act of 1998, which deals with medical parole for terminally ill prisoners in their final phase, then we need to know specifically why Shaik of all cases was used to signal a policy shift. Of course if the records show that Shaik is in the final phase of a terminal illness then the matter ends there.

Secondly if Shaik was granted parole on humanitarian grounds or as a result of poor health rather than in terms of the act, which would of course necessitate that National Parole Review Board Judge Siraj Desai and his team review the matter, then all of those prisoners who are genuinely in their final phase of a terminal illness — and yet have been denied parole — would need to know about it. They will then be well within their rights to challenge the decisions in their own cases and sue for damages arising out of the parole board’s failure to deal with their matters in terms of what the board, as demonstrated by the Shaik decision, considers the prevailing law. Accordingly, in order to obviate the uncertainty which arises out of Aids-related and cancer patients in their final throws being denied medical parole, while purportedly depressed prisoners with hypertension and chest pains walk free, those medical reports need to be made available as a matter of urgency.

Of course the minister understands that the longer this information is withheld and full disclosure is refused, the more people will assume that this is more of the arms deal, Scorpions and Pikoli type of conduct, which threatens the credibility of the rule of law in South Africa.