Zelda Venter
Oscar Pistorius’s legal team is considering their legal options after the parole review board set aside the decision to grant him parole and passed the buck back to the parole board yesterday.
“I have not yet received official word on this, but I unofficially understand that the matter has been referred back to the parole board. We will consider our legal options in this regard and it may entail an (urgent) court application,” lawyer Brian Webber told Cape Times sister paper the Pretoria News last night.
Asked how long Pistorius would have to wait if the parole board had to reconsider his placement on correctional supervision, Webber said: “I don’t know. How long is a piece of string?”
Webber said referring Pistorius’s case back to the parole board would mean that each and every prisoner who was sentenced under section 276 (i) of the Criminal Procedure Act and due to be released, also had to have their cases referred back to the board.
“There must be thousands,” Webber said.
Pistorius was sentenced a year ago in the high court in Pretoria to five years’ imprisonment under this act, which meant he had to serve 10 months of his sentence before the remainder of the five years was commuted into correctional supervision (house arrest).
Pistorius was due to be released on correctional supervision on August 21 after he had served 10 months of his five-year jail term for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day two years ago, following a conviction of culpable homicide.
Justice Minister Michael Masutha, on the eve of Pistorius’s release in August, referred the matter back to the review board for reconsideration. He objected to the fact that the parole board decided to announce the date for Pistorius’s release in June – months before he had served his 10 months in jail.
The review board met in Durban two weeks ago to reconsider the parole of a number of inmates, but as they could not complete their roll, Pistorius’s matter, among others, stood down to yesterday.
The Department of Correctional Services said yesterday: “The parole review board (PRB), which sat in Johannesburg today, has set aside the decision of the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Supervision and parole board (CSPB) to place section 276(1)(i) offender Oscar Pistorius under correctional supervision, with effect from August 21, 2015.”
Pretoria lawyer Julian Knight said there was no reason why the parole board could not come to a speedy decision, as it sat on a daily basis in Pretoria to consider the parole of inmates.
“They can decide within a few days and certainly before the end of this week,” Knight said.
According to him, it is within the power of the parole review board to refer the matter back to the parole board for a new decision.
Knight said nothing had changed or no new facts had come to the fore since the parole board decided to release Pistorius after serving his 10 months in jail.
“This process (to decide when he should be released) could be achieved within a few days,” Knight said.
“It all depends on how fast the parole board moved, but if they wanted to they could come to a speedy decision. This decision will be final,” he added.
Pistorius, meanwhile, faces another obstacle when the State turns to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein on November 3 to ask that his culpable homicide conviction be substituted with one of murder.
If the State succeeds, it could mean a possible 15-year jail term for Pistorius.