The New National Party called on Friday for an indaba on criminals’ constitutional rights and balancing these rights with the rights of crime victims.
Spokesperson Adriaan van Jaarsveld said the Human Rights Commission (HRC) had called for the indaba and this plea was endorsed by his party.
”The public has the perception that the Constitution offers greater protection to criminals than their victims. Such an indaba is important because it can promote respect for, and better understanding of, the Constitution,” he said.
Van Jaarsveld said the NNP would also raise the issue of reinstating the death penalty at such an indaba.
”Criminals do not respect the rights of their victims, but they demand all the rights afforded to them by the Constitution.
Criminals receive free medical attention where the victim has to pay for his/her own medical attention. Criminals also receive free legal aid at the expense of taxpayers.
”It does not take a genius to understand why the general public feel that criminals are a privileged class.”
The discussion was sparked by remarks allegedly made by Deputy President Jacob Zuma while visiting a crime-stricken Cape Town community earlier in the week.
Addressing an anti-crime meeting at Bonteheuwel on the gang-ridden Cape Flats on Tuesday, Zuma said it was contradictory that criminals could call on the protection of the Constitution after violating the rights of others.
He also said the law should be interpreted ”in a particular way” to deal with crime.
On Wednesday Zuma denied suggestions that he had criticised South Africa’s Constitution for protecting criminals.
”The headlines were not saying what the deputy president said,” he said in the National Assembly, referring to media reports stating that he had hit out at aspects of the Constitution.
Zuma told MPs he had not criticised the document, but rather the criminals who ignored it and then used to benefit themselves.
”The deputy president talked about the criminals that do not respect the Constitution of this country, when they commit crimes against citizens of this country, when they kill them, when they do all sorts of things.
”But, as soon as they are arrested as criminals, they then remember the Constitution, and they say the Constitution must protect their rights, when they don’t respect the rights of the people,” he said.
Zuma was responding in the House to comments from Democratic Alliance constitutional development spokesperson Tertius Delport.
Delport said the deputy president’s reported statement had shown a lack of respect for the Constitution and a lack of understanding on how to fight crime.
”It is not the law which is failing the public, it is the government. You cannot fight crime by undermining the basic rights enshrined in the Constitution,” he said. – Sapa