Cape Town – The National Prosecuting Authority has played its cards close to its chest, saying it did not want to be drawn into the debate on new strict bail laws proposed by the government.
NPA spokesperson Luvuyo Mfaku said on Monday they would wait for the Department of Justice to finish its process in developing policy before getting involved.
He said it was not in their mandate to develop laws, but that of the Justice Department.
He said if there was a review of legislation, justice would be leading that process.
The NPA would wait for the Department of Justice to give them an opportunity to respond after developing a new law on bail.
However, civil society and law experts warned that the government could be heading for trouble if it wanted to tighten up bail laws.
President Jacob Zuma told the National House of Traditional Leaders in Parliament last Friday that he had asked his security cluster ministers to look at the question of the release of suspected criminals by the courts.
This followed complaints by police officers to Zuma recently that they would arrest criminals, but the courts would release them.
Zuma said they needed ways to address this problem. The Justice Department said one of the things they were looking at was to tighten up bail laws.
Senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies Johan Burger said bail was regulated by the Criminal Procedure Act.
He said there had been cases in the past where criminals released on bail and those released on parole got out and committed more crimes.
However, amending the law would not solve this problem. “I am worried this amendment is to deal with those exceptional cases. You may not deal with exceptional cases in a general law,” he said.
Burger said there was no need for the government to amend the law on bail . Stakeholders must sit down and discuss how better to implement the law.
A researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, Selby Xinwa, warned the government not to create problems with this new policy proposal.
He said the bail conditions were already strict and the government should not exceed the bounds of the constitution and the law by denying people bail at every turn.
“As we speak, the laws on bail are stringent and whatever we do should be in line with the constitution,” he said.
There should be restrictions, but within the confines of the law. “Sometimes we want to do things correctly, but we do them wrongly. We need to be cautious of what we are doing here – that we don’t create a monster from what we are trying to do,” said Xinwa.