Two terminally ill convicts have, after a months-long struggle to be paroled on humanitarian grounds, been ordered released with immediate effect by the Johannesburg High Court.
Prisoner RS and prisoner MT*, who are both infected with HIV, are part of a group of 108 prisoners across Gauteng who on Monday took the Minister of Correctional Services, Ngconde Balfour, and his department to court to challenge parole conditions.
The prisoners, 29 of whom were heard on Monday, argued that inefficiency within the department of correctional services and in the office of the state attorney had led to their parole applications being delayed for up to three years - and that they wanted their applications heard before the end of the month, when a new parole act comes into being.
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In terms of the new law, prisoners will have to serve at least half of their sentences before being considered for parole - as opposed to the third they now have to complete - and their victims will from next month have a say in whether they should be freed.
'One is entitled, even if he is a prisoner, to die a dignified death' In their application, argued by their counsel, advocate Isabel Ehlers, Prisoner RS and Prisoner MT said their deteriorating health warranted their release.
"One is entitled, even if he is a prisoner, to die a dignified death," said Ehlers.
She argued that Prisoner RS's situation was so serious that two doctors had confirmed earlier this month that he had only six months to live.
Prisoner MT's situation was also acute in that he had not been receiving anti-retroviral drugs in prison.
Driving her point home, Ehlers said her clients' predicament was similar to that of William du Plooy, who was released from prison in March this year because he was terminally ill.
The department of correctional services had refused to release Du Plooy, who had been suffering from cancer, on medical parole.
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