Johannesburg -
‘It’s incredible news. I just want to see Clive walking out of hospital.”
Gaye Derby-Lewis was reacting to the announcement that the high court in Pretoria had granted medical parole to her husband, Clive Derby-Lewis, jailed for his role in the murder of SA Communist Party leader Chris Hani.
“It’s been a long, difficult battle,” Gaye told the Saturday Star.
“I am okay and Clive is okay. I will be very happy once he walks out of the hospital - while he is still able to walk. He gets very tired.”
Judge Selby Baqwa found that, while Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha considered inputs from Limpho Hani and the SACP regarding Derby-Lewis’s condition and remorse in his application for medical parole, Derby-Lewis was never furnished with these documents and thus could not respond.
This could only lead to a process which was not only flawed, but procedurally unfair.
Hani’s widow, Limpho, who had attended each medical parole application in the High Court since December, appeared in good spirits as she took her usual seat in the front row of the public gallery, smiling and speaking to friends.
But after the ruling, a stone-faced Limpho spoke briefly to her lawyers before storming out of court.
She refused to speak to the media.
It is not yet clear when Derby-Lewis, who suffers from advanced lung cancer, will be able to return home, as the judge ordered that the parole board had until June 5 to set the conditions under which the 79-year-old will be released.
Limpho and the SACP maintained that Derby-Lewis had shown no remorse for the killing of Chris Hani, and they vehemently opposed medical parole.
But the judge said it was clear that Derby-Lewis had expressed his remorse, and apologised.
“I have come to the conclusion that the flawed nature of the process adopted by the minister cannot be cured,” Judge Baqwa said.
“The facts in this case pertain to a matter of life and death, the latter having been forecast as a possibility in the not-too-distant future.”
Derby-Lewis’s lawyer Advocate Roelof du Plessis described his client’s release as a “victory for the independence of the judiciary, and for all terminally-ill prisoners”.
Derby-Lewis’s other legal representative, lawyer Julian Knight, told Saturday Star that, within days he would lodge a review application challenging Masutha’s decision in the hope that this would ultimately free Janus Walusz, who had pulled the trigger that killed Hani.
“It will… be on the same basis as the judicial review; that the minister was wrong in law. You can’t come and say the offender must apologise to the victim in a dialogue and delay it for a whole year when the victim refuses to partake. It creates an unfair situation.
“Clive qualified for release after 15 years and met the department’s own requirements, but had to wait another seven years before he was released on medical parole. Like Derby-Lewis, Mr Walusz meets the department’s parole guidelines.
“Far worse people have been released from jail - people that have killed tons more than he (Walusz) has.
“He is one person who killed one person. What possible basis can there be when you let other mass murderers out? Please explain that inconsistency.”
The effect of on Friday’s ruling is that Derby-Lewis may be home by next weekend after spending over 21 years imprisoned for the 1993 killing.
Two of Gaye’s closest friends, Salome Oosthuizen and Elize Strydom, burst into tears when Judge Baqwa on Friday ordered Derby-Lewis’ immediate release, subject to his parole conditions being in place.
Oosthuizen phoned Gaye to break the news: “He can come out - Clive has medical parole!” she repeatedly told her best friend.
Gaye had only attended the first day of the application. “She has fought so long for his release, and she’s tired of being branded ‘the killer’s wife’,” she said.
Mthunzi Mhaga, Masutha’s spokesman, said they noted the judgment and would “reflect” on it before deciding upon whether to appeal.
Saturday Star