Despite a clear policy on prison leave, Eugene Terre’Blanche was recently granted weekend parole while a seemingly deserving prisoner was not
Lebo Malepe and Sammy Modiba
It took a last-minute court application to get Phola Katisi to attend her brother’s funeral, while Eugene Terre’Blanche enjoyed 12 hours of freedom, courtesy of a bureaucratic mix-up in the Department of Correctional Services.
Katisi, serving a six-year term at the Johannesburg prison for murdering her mother-in-law after a long history of abuse by both her husband and her mother-in-law, recently approached prison authorities for permission to attend her brother’s funeral.
Her request was turned down on the basis that she does not qualify for compassionate leave in terms of the prison policy. The policy required her to have an approved date of release in six months. She has served only half her sentence.
Although the policy makes provision for discretion to allow a prisoner compassionate leave in deserving cases, Katisi could not be allowed to attend her brother’s funeral as doing so would open the floodgates for similar applications.
The Justice for Women Alliance, an alliance of organisations seeking legal ways of securing the release of women incarcerated for killing their partners or other relatives in a context of domestic violence, has been trying for the past 16 months to get Katisi’s sentence converted to a correctional supervision sentence.
The prison authorities are delaying granting this request despite a letter by the trial judge inviting them to do so. The urgent court application would not have been necessary had the request for conversion of Katisi’s sentence been responded to timeously.
The same weekend Katisi sought the court’s intervention to attend her brother’s funeral, Terre’Blanche was allowed weekend parole. How he achieved this remains a mystery. The decision to allow him a weekend of freedom was reversed 12 hours after his temporary release.
Department of Correctional Services representative Russell Mmamabolo said the department reversed a decision by Rooigrond prison authorities to grant Terre’Blanche weekend parole on the basis that the decision was exercised outside the scope of prison leave policy.
Mmamabolo would not disclose the circumstances surrounding Terre’Blanche’s request for leave.
The department immediately launched an enquiry into the circumstances surrounding his release and within a few days the Minister of Correctional Services, Ben Skosana, issued a statement calling on the commissioner of correctional services to review the prison policy “to see to it that prison officials do not find ways of abusing the delegations conferred on them … and to put a halt to recurrent incidents such as the one involving prisoner Terre’Blanche which clearly embarrassed government”.
No further investigations were to ensue on the matter and no one was to be subjected to a disciplinary enquiry.
The question remains: why was Terre’Blanche allowed weekend parole so easily and why did it take the court’s intervention to allow Katisi at least the benefit of accompanied attendance at her brother’s funeral?
The Department of Correctional Services is guided by internal policy directives in deciding whether to grant any prisoner temporary leave from prison.
The policy directives are quite clear: temporary leave from prison is a privilege available only to prisoners who qualify and is granted under the circumstances of compassionate leave, developmental or therapeutic programme, extension of family ties and preparation for release from prison.
Only prisoners with an approved date of release qualify, except in deserving cases, where a special concession can be made.
Factors to be taken into account in releasing prisoners on leave include the prisoner’s general behaviour and adaptation in prison, crime history, recidivism and escape risk, and safe custody classification.
Although Katisi did not have an approved date of release as required by the policy, hers was a deserving case. Despite the fact that she was convicted of a violent crime, she did so in a specific context of domestic violence. She can therefore not be perceived to constitute a danger to society. Her blameworthiness is reduced by the abusive circumstances in which she found herself when she committed the offence. She is a model “A” category prisoner who has adapted well to prison life.
Prison authorities were oblivious to all these factors when they considered Katisi’s request for compassionate leave. In their eyes Katisi represents a murderer from whom the public has to be protected.
They appear to have been more worried about being flooded with applications for compassionate leave than they were concerned with applying the leave policy appropriately. Yet the same concerns did not arise in Terre’Blanche’s case.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding Terre’Blanche’s release indicate the arbitrary and discriminatory manner in which the prison leave policy is applied.
In the light of failure by the correctional services to disclose the circumstances underlying Terre’Blanche’s temporary release, it is difficult to assess how the decision to grant the leave was exercised.
However, the subsequent reversal of the decision, lack of challenge of the reversal by Terre’Blanche and the department’s finding that the decision was exercised outside the prison policy, point to misapplication rather than misinterpretation of a very clear policy.
It is ironic that correctional services finds an excuse of misinterpretation for the ultra vires application of the policy. There seems to be a clear case of misconduct on the part of whoever made the decision to let Terre’Blanche out.
Skosana finds a solution to the illegal release of Terre’Blanche to lie in the revision of the prison leave policy. The policy hardly requires revision. All it requires is appropriate and non- discriminary application.
While temporary release from prison is a privilege and not a right, prisoners have a constitutional right to a just administrative decision when requesting a concession from the prison authorities. They should not have to bear the inconvenience of expensive court applications to have policy decisions exercised in a just and fair manner.
Katisi could not afford the high legal costs involved in bringing an urgent court application. The application was made possible by a contribution towards legal costs by Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre and the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, and free legal services by Raborifi, Gcwensa and Partners Attorneys. Advocate Dirk Vetten accepted a nominal fee for his services.
Lebo Malepe is a senior legal researcher for Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre, a member organisation of the Justice for Women Alliance. Sammy Modiba is a partner at Raborifi, Gwensa and Partners Attorneys