Cape Town - A Western Cape High Court judge has ruled that sections 88A (1)(b), 88A (4) and 91 of the Correctional Services Act are inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid to the extent that they fail to provide an adequate level of independence to the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS).
Judge Nolwazi Boqwana also gave Parliament two years to remedy the defect. The judgment comes in the wake of the matter of Sonke Gender Justice NPC v the State President and others. They challenged the constitutional validity of parts of the Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998 (CAS), dealing essentially with the independence of the JICS, as well the provisions which make JICS financially dependent and accountable to the Department of Correctional Services and its chief executive, falling under the national commissioner.
The JICS was established in June 1998 to reform legislation governing correctional services, including establishing an inspectorate aimed at ensuring a correctional system that is regulated in a manner giving effect to the Bill of Rights.
“The importance of JICS in the correctional services sphere cannot be understated. It serves a crucial function, focusing on facilitating inspection and reporting on the vulnerable (the inmates), how they are treated, and the conditions they are held in.
“The vulnerability lies in the fact that they for the most part are at the mercy of others as to their living conditions and treatment or survival, once incarcerated,” Judge Boqwana found.